A streetcar named San Vicente

THE Luceros-San Vicente Line 2 tram stood idle for two-and-a-half years after completion.

So it was too much, perhaps, to expect the first official tram ride to go off smoothly.

Technically everything was perfect, but the regional president Alberto Fabra never did reach San Vicente. 

If all had gone according to plan he would have been greeted at the station by a posse of local and regional dignitaries before boarding the tram to the central station, Luceros.

Instead more than 150 demonstrators blocked the track at San Vicente, undeterred by the presence of police, riot police and the Guardia Civil.

Rather than oblige Fabra to run the gauntlet of the protests at spending cuts and corruption the opening ceremony was shifted to the central station.

“A police charge is out of the question. We’ll have the opening at Luceros, matter solved,” said the head of the regional government’s Social Welfare department Asuncion Sanchez Zaplana as she and others returned to their official cars.

The event went ahead on schedule and Line 2, which will be used by 4 million people each year, was finally declared open.