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The Railway Union is pressing ahead with a second day of strikes on Wednesday July 15, timed to land right in the middle of one of the busiest days of the summer holiday exodus.

 

The action centres on the state of the freight service and it follows an earlier strike day on June 29 that barely made a dent in normal operations.

 

Renfe has set minimum services for the day at between 50% and 75% on commuter trains and 73% on high-speed services, broadly mirroring the levels it guaranteed for the first strike day. According to the operator, 75% of commuter trains will run across the various hubs, along with 73% of high-speed and long-distance services and 66% of medium-distance trains.

 

In practical terms, that works out to 249 of the 343 scheduled AVE high-speed trains running as normal, along with 426 of the 650 scheduled regional services. Commuter trains will run at 75% capacity during peak hours, dropping to 50% for the rest of the day.

 

Judging by how the last strike went, most passengers probably won’t even notice that anything unusual is going on. Participation on June 29 came in at just 1.83%, according to Renfe, and if July 15 follows a similar pattern, most trains are likely to run regardless of whether they fall under the minimum service guarantees or not.

 

Renfe explained that whether non-guaranteed services run "will depend on the strike's participation."

 

The Railway Union had originally estimated that around 124 train services would be affected on the June 29 strike day, but Renfe described the actual impact as virtually non-existent, with only four trains cancelled all day, including one AVE service between Barcelona and Madrid whose passengers were rebooked without any major issues.

 

Despite that low turnout, the Railway Union has chosen to press ahead with the July 15 strike anyway, arguing that Renfe never honoured commitments made back in November 2023 to protect the freight service, commitments that had been enough to call off a separate strike backed by other railway unions at the time. The union has accused Renfe of what it calls the "premeditated abandonment" of freight operations.