BARCELONA – Commuter rail service serving Barcelona and northeastern Spain has suffered major disruption because of the theft of copper cables from a train installation, Spanish rail authorities said Sunday.
Thousands of commuters were stranded at train stations in and around Barcelona after trains couldn't run on several commuter lines.
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The disruption to local transport came while more than 5.7 million voters were eligible to participate in a regional election in Catalonia.
Spain’s state-owned railway authority ADIF said that the theft of electrical cabling from a station just north of Barcelona in the town of Montcada caused “several fires in the cables of the signaling system.”
It said that the incident around 4 a.m. local time (0200 GMT) caused a “serious” impact to the local train service and affected all the rail lines.
Catalonia’s commuter rail service suffers regular delays, some because of similar acts of theft.