1. The last 3 cars from the Iryo train (Frecciarossa 1000) derailed for unknown reasons. It's a straight line, so this is extremely rare.
2. The Renfe train (Alvia) didn't have time to break and hit the derailed trains from Iryo, the two first cars derail as a consequence of the impact.
3. The Iryo train(Frecciarossa 1000), that caused the accident, was manufactured in 2022 and it passed a technical inspection just 4 days ago.
4. The renovation of this specific part of the infrastructure finished on May 2025, so it's practically new.
Spanish high speed trains are one of the best in the world and it had plenty investment from governments of different sign over the years. This has nothing to do with the regional network (Cercanias) and the local struggles in certain regions.
IMHO, this is a horribly timed accidental technical issue.
> 3. The Iryo train(Frecciarossa 1000), that caused the accident, was manufactured in 2022 and it passed a technical inspection just 4 days ago.
The inspection is a risk factor. There is data from the aviation industry for example that engine incidents on an engine that is certified for some thousands of hours of operation between inspection happen disproportionally in the first 100 hours (and then again at the end of the inspection interval). The inspection itself is an intervention that causes incidents.
I didn’t know this concept had a name, so thanks for that. Now I have a fancy sounding term to tell my manager why I won’t touch that ugly EnterpriseJavaBeans codebase and that we need to rewrite it from scratch.
Train inspections are far less intrusive. Wheel wear can be measured with calipers while standing beside the train. Software tests are physically null, except for alarms sounding. Brakeline tests can be verified without adding gauges; in many cases the braking mechanisms are externally observable.
Plane controls systems all live behind thin, deformable metal or plastic covers.
Trains aren't perfect, obv, but most train accidents reduce to "A human on the tracks fucked up". Drivers trying to maintain schedules by speeding, or vehicles or humans standing on rails where they had no business being (dodging crossing guards, suicide, etc).
Came here to say. I don’t know enough about their inspection guidelines and how intrusive it is on the train’s systems, but anytime you do something outside the norm (including inspections) you introduce a variable that may have played a part.
The machinist union requested the maximum speed to be lowered from 300 km/h to 250 km/h on multiple areas, the one where the accident happened being one of them. Both trains were driving under 210 km/h when the accident happened, so I don't think the "rattling" they reported was the issue.
As I mentioned before, this area was renovated last year, so attributing the accident to under-funding is highly unlikely. If the infrastructure happened to be the issue at the end, it might be because of different causes: eg. Planning the wrong materials for the amount of traffic / weather conditions / etc.
In general, when you talk about under-funding in the rail network it's often regional or small areas within the inter-city (larga distancia) and transport networks. High speed infrastructure is very well financed, it's not cheap to move trains close to 300 km/h.
Doesn't need to be underfunding, may 2025 was last summer and this was the first winter, defects in laying the tracks didn't have a chance to show up until now.
The biggest part then might be that they should have listened to the operators warnings and scheduled a proper re-inspection of the route once they started warning of issues.
> defects in laying the tracks didn't have a chance to show up until now.
Defects in laying the tracks have a chance to show up on an inspection, either the final one when building or one done at the regular intervals. If it doesn't shows up, your inspection is bad. If you can't inspect what you build, you can't build it.
Not going to be claiming to be an expert, but buckling is a well documented phenomenon and I'd be surprised if there wasn't possible issues due to contraction on the other end of the spectrum when it gets colder, the track was laid this last spring/summer so it's probably not been as cold for long before on the tracks.
Also modern high speed rails are built with continious welding without thermal expansion joints.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqmOSMAtadc goes through track building and the effects and literally mentions at about 12:30 that they do need to do inspections when it gets cold if the track cracks (there was a photo linked in another post about a cracked track).
Is it the cause? No idea but doesn't feel far fetched.
You seem very well informed, so I'm sure you've read that every single railway engineer and independent expert is saying that this seems like a freak accident and that the causes are totally unknown.
Knowing this, you're still all over the thread trying to score political points while there are dead people still on the tracks. One quick glance on your posting history is all one needs to see that you're happy to take any chance to do so, apparently including the death of at least 39 people. You disgust me. Y te creerás un "español de los buenos". Felicidades, patriota.
The collision was due to one train derailing first, if that was due to the track (as mentioned in andy12_'s toplevel comment) then listening to warnings could perhaps have avoided the accident.
Could have, though both trains were going slower than what the mechanic union asked for. Either or wasn't a factor, or the conditions were even worse than all parties believed.
Some have mentioned that the tracks were installed during may 2025, it's also the first winter so track issues and then thermal contraction could've cause too much strain.
Most recent reports indicate a broken weld on the track, so definitely possible damage from frost heave (is that a thing in the area it derailed?) or poor construction practices.
There are reports from passengers that the train rattled before the accident. So my guess is a broken wheel rim and subsequently the train derailed at the track switch then also damaging the opposite track.
Accident location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Cek9DgChguXJxVpd6 The italian is about 400m north at the technical building with the two antennas.
This is tragic, but I hope it doesn't put a damper on Spanish high-speed train development. They've really done a remarkable job building out their network in a cost-effective manner.
Assuming no foul play, it's going to be a Points Failure, isn't it? Like Potters Bar (2002) where most of the train makes it through, but rattles/breaks some weak point that was just holding on, and the last carriages change tracks. But at 250mph. Shocking stuff.
In point number 3, you state that one of the trains caused the accident, whereas the cause of the accident is not yet known and could be for example an issue in the rails themselves.
Yes, that was not accurate and you're correct, it's still not clear what caused the first train to derail to begin with.
The way I looked at it is that the first train derailing wasn't a big issue, I don't think it caused any injuries. What was really catastrophic was the impact with the second train.
I don't think Russians are directly behind this. They targeted trains in Poland twice, but I suspect the next targets would be in Germany, France and the UK, and not Spain which is relatively conservative in supporting Ukraine.
The are actively sabotaging supply chains within Europe since at least two years. They did the drone overflights for propaganda purposes. They burnt down warehouses and tried to kill CEOs. Many Ukrainian refugees in Germany have been killed in "random" attacks.
In 2025, sabotage attacks on German railroad system happened nearly once per week. The recent power outage in Berlin was clearly attributed to russian origin.
Opinion is not fact. Provide some facts to support your atrocious claims. You have provided only an opinion based on specious references to groupthink.
Spaniard here. Nope; we are full of "take the money and run" type CEO's, where they even
blamed the train driver. He might be partially accountable, but it wasn't his fault in the very end.
The most important context is this image[1] from the Guardia Civil. Using Google Maps, and using as context the tree, post and yellow connection box in the image, we can place its location at 180m before the accident in the tracks of the Iryo train. The image appears to show a track welding failure. This would match the reports of some passengers[2] that reported that the "train started shaking violently" before the accident.
Photo at 38.00771000519087, -4.565435982666953
Accident at 38.009292813090475, -4.564960554581273
Just a few weeks ago, terrorists twice tried to sabotage rail lines in Poland, endangering a passenger train with hundreds of people.
> "[Prime Minister Donald] Tusk said that a military-grade C4 explosive device had been detonated on 15 November at about 21:00 (20:00 GMT) near the village of Mika."
> "The explosion, which happened as a freight train was passing, caused minor damage to a wagon floor. It was captured on CCTV."
> "Tusk said the train driver had not even noticed the incident."
> "A previous attempt to derail a train by placing a steel clamp on the rail had failed, he added."
> "The second act of sabotage, on 17 November, involved a train carrying 475 passengers having to suddenly brake because of damaged railway infrastructure, said Tusk."
Wouldn't the gap simply be the result of loss of tension after the weld broke? Metal expands in the heat (about 1cm per degree C per km). Weather shows it got down to around 0C in Córdoba last night while the summer record is around 47C so one would expect a fairly large gap once tension is released.
If sabotage it will be plain as day to a trained eye. I await the report. That break could also be explained by the rail heading away in that photo snapping at that point because the train pushed it out, noting the rail has rotated 90 degrees clockwise -- something did that work, and it was probably the train going out and over. I'm not a rail tie expert (nor is anyone likely to be on HN) so I don't know if this is an unusual failure mode. But there was a line change point intersection immediately south of the crash. My money is there was a fault (accidental or deliberate) there, not at this snapping point.
Looks like a pull-apart: bad weld, then cold weather caused contraction from both sides making a gap. Pretty massive for a pull-apart but not impossible.
For many years the Spanish state-owned company RENFE had a monopoly on Spain's huge high speed rail network. However their high prices, inconvenient schedules and poor customer service were often criticized, and so when, to the annoyance of RENFE and many spanish politicians, additional foreign operators entered the market on the key Madrid - Barcelona route, ridership doubled whilst ticket prices halved.
So I would standby for this tragedy to be used for political purposes to try and get foreign operators banned from Spanish tracks, regardless of the facts of the matter.
Foreign operators are mandated by the EU, they can't be banned. Spain has been one of the first countries to allow foreign high speed operators (unlike other European countries that did attempt to delay their entrance as much as possible
I have observed that it is a recurring pattern. I am most aware of the behind the scenes in public education, but I believe it is across the board.
Massive efforts are done to implement reforms to conform to EU standards, believing that that’s how the “superior” EU members do it (Germany, NL, Nordics…). But then I go there and I see that their system has nothing to do with the standards and they are not doing much to conform.
It’s fine, these reforms are often beneficial for Spain, and I do believe that generally being in the EU is a big win-win. Although sometimes it’s just a lot of unnecessary reshuffling at great cost.
A certain segment of the Spanish population really looks up to northern EU countries, or rather they feel a sense of inferiority. In practice there is not all that much to look up to and I believe Spain should be feel more confident. Many great things are prevented by the widespread belief that we are in a shitty country and that everyone is useless, but it is just not true.
> Massive efforts are done to implement reforms to conform to EU standards, believing that that’s how the “superior” EU members do it (Germany, NL, Nordics…).
I can't speak for Germany or the Nordics, but here in the Netherlands the government is doing just about anything in their power to keep foreign competition from our rail network. The only lines serviced by foreign operators are the ones that would cost the national operator more than they would bring in and (some of) the international train services.
Our "high speed" rail is a joke. The trains themselves are fine, but the bridges over them are too brittle for the train to actually achieve high speeds, so it's operating at less than half the speed Spanish high speed rail is operating at. If anything, the success of the Spanish rail operators is an argument in favour of actually bringing competition to Dutch rail operators.
That said, the Dutch railway network is very different from the Spanish railway network. We're a small, densely populated country with many stops along just about any track, barely giving most trains time to accelerate even between larger city centers. The network is complex, the rails are extremely busy all hours of the day, our trains run on an idiotically low voltage and two trains with a dozen minutes in delays can back up the national train grid in no time if they slow down in the wrong spot. There are only a few long-distance high-speed rail options that make sense, some of which already sort of exist (Eurostar to the south), some of which our neighbours plainly don't want (any Dutch rail project crossing into the German border), and some of which are hardly financially viable (trains from the big cities to remote parts of the country) in a country that doesn't want to spend money on public transport.
It would be nice to have a couple of routes between a few major cities with nonstop service, but there are are no bypasses around the interstitial cities so those would need to be built first.
Groningen -> Amsterdam
Maastricht -> Amsterdam
Eindhoven -> Amsterdam
Nijmegen -> Amsterdam
I can only speak for myself, but a trip from Maastricht to Amsterdam is almost 2.5 hours by train for a distance of a smidge over 200km. This is mainly due to all of the stops along the way to pick up riders in every major city between the two.
Currently, our trains never go faster than 160km/h if the onboard screens are to be trusted.
There are a few tracks that can go faster than 160km/h (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Baanvaks...) but also slower ones. The 80km/h tracks especially have a tendency to make a relatively short journey feel like it takes forever, especially if your train journey includes a trip over the 200km/h segment.
"Gut Ding will Weile haben." / "Haste makes waste."
I've got good memories waiting on the platform in Arnhem for my train back into Germany in the early morning, after a night in the coffeeshops there in the nineties.
Observing all the commuters holding on to their coffee to go, and balancing it in their hands, anticipating the jerky start of these things https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Mat_%2764 :-)
Looked hilarious. All in sync. Like orchestrated.
Regarding the percieved slowness, and differences on both sides of the border(at the times?).
When doing the same route by car, your motorways felt supersmooth, even with all the strange markings and traffic signs :-)
Crossing back into Germany toward Oberhausen-> Ruhrpott came the Autobahn made of concrete slabs, and gaps between them. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump!.
Very annoying when still 'under the influence' of that grassy green stuff :-)
Taking a train to the nearest (usable) airport within the Netherlands takes between 2 and 2.5 hours depending on the available trains, amount of transfers, and "high-speed" (not actually) rail surcharge. Actually, because of a train hitting someone, I currently can't reach any airport by train because my city is right at the edge of the train network. Groningen-Schiphol is similar, and Maastricht-Schiphol is 2,5 hours at the very minimum. Meanwhile, Amsterdam-Brussels takes about 2 hours.
Our regular train speeds are 80kmh to 140kmh, with maybe a little bit of 160kmh on specific stretches.
I realize my country is incredibly well-connected by public transit and those 2 hours are already a massive luxury compared to probably most of the world's population, but I wouldn't mind a few high-speed lines from the center of the country (probably Utrecht) to major cities. With trains currently being more expensive than taking a car if you travel with two people or more, it'd make the high cost worth it.
The station density in NL simply doesn't allow for the same kind of high-speed rail that you see in Spain, France or Germany. The segments Groningen-Zwolle and Maastricht-Eindhoven are basically the only parts where train speeds over 200km/h make any difference. On all other trajectories, the limiting factor is not the maximum train speed but the interference from other rail traffic.
The major cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Den Haag) typically have 4 trains/hour going between them. Higher-speed trains won't make any difference there, unless you first build out dedicated infrastructure (like the IC Direct line between Schiphol and Rotterdam, which cuts a whopping 20 mins from the regular IC travel time).
and your country is 320 kilometers high and 250 wide. There may be a lot of problems with your rail network but insufficient train speed ain't one of them. With the current rail speeds you can cross it comfortably in two hours in any direction. Probably you need to optimize it, lay new train tracks, but there is no need to go for the expensive high speed.
It's a common pattern far beyond the EU. One big driving force is that if you have an existing solution that achieves 80% you have much less incentive to change than if your current state only achieves 50%. So the "inferior" country modernizes to the new 100% solution while the "superior" one might stay on the 80% solution for far longer
Compared to road deaths that's practically nothing. Obviously 39 dead are 39 too many, and in terms of railway disasters it's a lot, but in the bigger picture it's a blip
France, for example, has been trying to delay allowing Renfe (Spanish operator) to operate through the country as much as possible, while their public operator SNCF (branded as Ouigo) has been able to operate here since 2021.
This EU free-rider behavior is unfortunately typical of French public sector policy.
European energy markets were famously liberalised in 1996, allowing French state-owned EDF to acquire the previously state-owned monopolist Electrabel in Belgium. All the while France negotiated an exemption for not privatising EDF because of its nuclear facilities. EU regulations should prevent this type of free-ridership: state-owned companies shouldn't be able to compete abroad if they don't face competition at home.
Unless there is evidence that the accident was caused by the Iryo train, I wouldn’t be so fast to blame the private companies on a decaying infrastructure.
There are plenty of cases of lack of maintenance in the railway network.
The railway network has been mismanaged and plagued with incidents for years. See it for yourself: ADIF was aware that there were issues in Adamuz for months[1].
That doesn't mean we know for sure it was that, don't you think? Your comments seem very politically motivated, and you're asking others to not blame it on the train as the reasons for the accident are still unknown and at the same time you're pushing the maintenance issues narrative.
I am nos asking anything. You can think what you want. What the data that we have right now tells us is: new train built in 2022, checked 4 days ago[1], and issues on that part of the railway track for months[2].
You mean the People's Party (PP) which was in charge when the Angrois derailment happened didn't do anything to address the warnings from the machinists? Because they had been in government for more than a year and a half already.
No, I mean the party who was in charge when all that happened (PP). They had plenty of time to fix that if, as you claim, the machinists were warning about issues in the railroad.
I think much manufacturing adheres to the die-young, die-old principle (Often mentioned in the Backblaze reports), manufacturing defects shows up early on, time of stillness and then as it ages it starts to fail.
The tracks were laid in May 2025, that means no winters had passed before now and any defects in the tracks due to temperature differences hadn't had a chance to appear before now.
Railways are neither consumer electronics, nor software. There is a final inspection after construction work, in which the network operator releases the constructor from responsibilities, which should catch any issues. When the network operator later claims, that there was a manufacturing defect, the first question is why didn't it has known earlier, because that is their job.
But brand new doesn't mean the repairs / mainenance were done correctly. It could both be brand "new" and defective.
We've seen lots of serious fuck ups in Europe lately: including for a start several cases of maintenance improperly done on big passenger planes that nearly led to hundreds of passengers deaths (several planes have been diverted in the last months and the cause was improper maintenance).
I'm not saying improper repairs/maintenance on the rails are the cause: I'm saying it's a fact we've seen improper repairs/maintenance on passenger planes in the recent months.
> So I would standby for this tragedy to be used for political purposes
This is an ignorant opinion. For multiple reasons.
Derailing under these circumstances is a track issue, which means ADIF, the state's infrastructure maintainer, is under suspicion. Not operators, the state's infrastructure maintainer.
Liberalization of the railway sector is an EU-wide mandate. It's not some whimsical slip of a single country's leadership.
Years ago there was an AVE derailment in Santiago de Compostela. No one banned RENFE from the lines.
> It could be a broken rail weld, it could be track sabotage, it could be a broken wheel or bogie... we don't know yet.
Yes, the root cause is still unknown, and an investigation needs to happen to determine the root cause.
Sabotage or not, the infrastructure is by far the most likely suspect.
Even in the Santiago de Compostela accident, the root cause was the way the Spanish high speed railway infrastructure was mismanaged. Originally they tried to throw the train conductor under the proverbial bus with accusations of speeding to impress a girl, but later the investigation determined the track section failed to support basic speed limiters.
Jumping to conclusions about evil private railway operators is just ignorant and dumb.
> The government during that time (of the same party than this one) did nothing.
It looks like you're quite interested in pointing out that the culprit of this 2013 accident was the same party which is now in office, but even if we take a look at your sources, it says something different:
"Las víctimas creen que hubo cuatro decisiones críticas. Primero, el cambio de proyecto original realizado por Blanco, que suprimió el sistema de seguridad ERTMS en la vía justo antes de Angrois. Segundo, la decisión del ministerio de Ana Pastor de desconectar el sistema embarcado en el Alvia, desactivando una medida técnica que habría ayudado a mitigar el riesgo de un error humano como el que tuvo el maquinista. La tercera decisión fue ignorar un aviso por escrito de un jefe de maquinistas advirtiendo del riesgo en la curva de Angrois. La cuarta, que Adif y Renfe permitieron poner en servicio la línea sin haber realizado el análisis y evaluación de riesgos que exigía la normativa."
There we can read that not only the former minister Blanco (socialist) was to blame according to the demonstrators, but also Ana Pastor (conservative) whose party was in charge when the accident happened.
If you’re interested in this kind of thing, look up plainly difficult on youtube. He has more videos on train crashes than I’ve seen, and I’m embarrassed how many I’ve seen. Here’s one to get you started: https://youtu.be/VV2rIHEp5AM?si=sSBT9s49PqbLTGbt
There are a lot of safety lessons embedded in these videos, which is why I like them. I also did a double take when I heard "semaphore"; its history goes back far longer than the ~century of software engineering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore
Oh you silly duck! Semafor is a common word in a handful of other languages for things like traffic lights and such. I had to do a double take when I first saw it in a programming class.
Also hope you’re doing well it’s been a minute since our paths crossed on gdnet.
"Semaphore" is (old) Greek and means "sign (sema) bearer (phore)", and actually the meaning in railways and computing is more or less the same: in computing, a semaphore signals if a resource is in use; in railways, the resource is a segment of a railway line, and the user is a train.
I disagree, but we are all entitled to our own opinions, and I get that there are a lot of luddites on HN these days. The fact that you consider it vomit rather than useful information just says more about you than me. If there was just a wiki page on how railway terms were used in computing, I would have just linked that (search didn't turn up anything in the first few pages).
I don't want to speculate on this crash but my mental model for these things is that there's always a handful of factors that all align and converge to create an accident. Some factors are deep-rooted - and point to decisions made years ago - sometimes related to company culture. Theres always an element of operator error: someone ignored something due to inattention or sleepiness.
Social? A lot of the bars/restaurants people go to in the morning for coffee/breakfast usually have news on the TV, and people usually talk with each other when big news happens.
This morning, big debates about what happened, whose fault it is, how safe/dangerous trains are, anecdotes from the past and jokes. Somber but lively discussions. Benefit is social cohesion with your neighbours and compatriots :)
The Italians designed it but won't run it at more than 300km/h in Italy citing local infrastructure concerns. I guess that leaves other countries to find the edge cases. I'll be interested to find out how fast it was going during the crash.
AnsaldoBreda did also manufacture the Fyra trains for the short-lived high-speed trains here in The Netherlands. After three trains lost parts in the first month, it was banned from operations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyra
Looks like a Frecciarossa 1000 derailed in 2020 but it was due to a manufacturer defect in a track switch replaced the night before.
The defect was not caught by the manufacturer or the system operator. It was due to two crossed wires in an assembly.
I know a lot more engineering goes into these trains due to the higher stakes. Japan’s high speed rail hasn’t had a fatal accident in 60 years. I’m wondering what the cause of this will turn out to be.
Actually the defect was detected by the operators, who installed it that night. They disabled the switch, but apparently this didn't reach the day shift.
Japan's shinkansen system has never had a fatal accident, except for one incident in 1995 where someone got killed at a station because he was caught in a door as the train departed the station (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishima_Station_incident). No one has ever died in a derailing, crash, etc.
Taking the commuter train to and from Dublin, sometimes another train on the other direction passes and it's a bit unnerving. I cannot imagine such a collision between two high speed trains :(
I have the same feeling riding the TGV in France. When another train passes in the opposite direction, the pressure in the interior of the cabin even changes. Not sure if it lowers or raises, but I can definitely feel it in my ears.
I knew this would come up so specifically searched for the comment. And I knew the death rate for cars would be >>>> than trains.
HOWEVER, there is something unique scary about a single incident that kills more people that fit in a typical car. Combined with the fact that you have 0 control over it is much more frightening (for lack of a better word) than car static deaths.
Just my opnion, may not be rational but I'd still rather be behind the wheel?
I may feel in control inside of my car, but it's up to the rest of the general populace to not T-bone me and kill me on every intersection and roundabout I pass. Every corner is a risk where someone can steer into my lane and cause a frontal collision. Every highway off-ramp, a suicidal driver may try to kill himself against my car. Every truck I pass is a possible burst tyre away from crushing me against the barriers. And that's outside of the car; pedestrians are at the whim of any vehicle.
Most people usually behave on the road, stick to driving legally, don't drink or do drugs behind the wheel, and can manage to stop safely in dangerous situations. However, I feel like many people overestimate how well they could control their car in a dangerous scenario.
100% true, and it may not be rational vs statistics. However in your case your control is still > 0. Seasoned drivers have a six sense about the environment.
* Everyone over estimates their driving ability vs the average
* No matter how much control you think you have, there are always things outside your control.
I'll take a trip by train or plane rather than by car every single time.
I feel WAY more safe knowing that the vehicle is operated by trained professionals and there's an extremely robust system around them to ensure safety, rather than whatever semblance of control I think I have driving my car.
Maybe if it's a trip I do once in a while. But going from Málaga to Madrid and back once a week, in a car, driving? Or Barcelona <> Madrid once a week? No, hard pass, I'd rather be driven by someone else, in a comfy carriage, where I can comfortably sleep or do other things in the meantime.
Me and thousands of others agree, otherwise we wouldn't have one of the most expansive train networks in the world. Spain might be larger than people think, driving to everywhere in the country while fun, isn't feasible for repeated trips, the distances are just too large.
With that said, every once in a while a road trip with a car is really nice, maybe every 1-2 years, and driving across Europe stopping when you see something interesting or driving towards interesting things you see in the distance. Hard to get that same "explorer" feeling with other modes of transportation :)
True, I don't drive or take public transportation for a commute so I wasn't thinking of that scenario. I wasn't thinking of a scenario where I HAD to do it frequently.
Afaik, that's how lots (most?) of the train network is used here, cheap commuting to/from work on the weekdays, and to/from birthplace/family-town/city/closest metropolitan area on the weekends/holidays. Probably true for most places with extensive train networks, come to think of it.
You have to divide that by miles travelled to get a meaningful number - trains will still be a lot safer, but comparing oranges to apples doesn't help the argument
From the aerial imagery it looks like the accident sequence started at the track switch [1]. The RENFE is rested south of it and the Iryo is north. Quite similar to the 1998 Eschede ICE accident which started with a broken wheel rim and finally derailed at a track switch.
I wonder how anybody knows that it was the Iryo train that caused the accident.
The current government has been found to be cutting corners in maintaining the Cercanías commuter railway network[1]. Indeed last year some machinists had to derail a train to stop it from crashing other[2].
The former Transport Minister is jailed because of corruption in public contracts, and hiring prostitutes[3][4].
The government is doing a poor job maintaining the current railway network.
Every government in Spain for the last decade or more has been cutting corners in maintaining the rail networks: high speed (where this accident happened), the conventional network and commuter rail. You failed to mention the fact our budget has been extended since 2023, that the actual track where this happened was given maintenance under a year ago (per the minister, [^1]) and the train that first derailed (Iryo's ETR1000) was last checked 4 days ago.
Regarding the former Minister (Ábalos), he's awaiting trial and not yet convicted (even though, IMHO he is probably guilty), and he hasn't been in the ministry since 2021[^2] so it makes no sense to bring it up when he has been out for nearly 4.5 years now.
I think you are just stirring the pot and cherry picking news.
"Cercanias" is a different rail network to the one where the accident happened (high-speed). Also the political issue that you are mentioning happened 5 years ago on a single individual not directly affiliated to the organization that manages the rail network. Please let's be serious and bring constructive things to the conversation
> The current government has been found to be cutting corners
Where do the articles mention that the current government has been cutting corners? In fact, they have increased the current investment plan on the Cercanías commuter railway network to more than 7,000 million euro, from 5.000 million that the previous government planned[1].
Now, this isn't to that the current political landscape is fine because ( as portrayed by the last articles ) is totally unacceptable, and of course that affects the rail network negatively.
The Cercanías commuter railway network is in a state of disarray[1]. There has been a mismanagement of funds in the railway authority[2][3][4].
Maldita.es is founded by ex-employees of La Sexta, a TV channel known to be politically aligned with the socialist party (currently in the government).
> Maldita.es is founded by ex-employees of La Sexta, a TV channel known to be politically aligned with the socialist party (currently in the government).
How does that relate to the Maldita.es article linked by GP commenter? The article starts by debunking a false claim that was made by a minister in the socialist government against the conservative regional government of Madrid.
> Maldita.es is founded by ex-employees of La Sexta, a TV channel known to be politically aligned with the socialist party
In this particular article they were fact-checking a wrong claim made by the socialist party, to me that shows that besides their alignment, they care about fact checking information. They also mention that the last three development plans were developed by PP ( People's party ) -- if they're aligned with the socialist party, why are they mentioning this and leave the socialist party "in a bad light"?
In regard to the state of the railway network, I totally agree with what you mentioned. Thought corruption will inevitably occur and doesn't mean that the persons above are aware of it nor that the socialist party is intentionally cutting funds. Nonetheless, totally unacceptable.
What does the "Cercanías" conmuter network in Madrid have to do with the high-speed AVE network where the accident took place? They are two different networks, and even if the first one isn't well maintained as you claim, it doesn't mean the other one has to be in the same situation.
Also, it's been four and a half years since the former Transport Minister who is in jail left the office (july 2021).
I can tell that you really don't like the current government but you should relax a little.
There is an accident with death people, maybe people still trapped there and the causes are still unknown. Too early to start playing politics, don't you think?
Bring up unrelated accidents strikes me as not being completely honest. Why you didn't mention that what you are talking about is a different train network where the accident was today?
Maybe because it would make your point very weak, and you know this. That's why you seem "not relaxed".
> Is showing that the government is underfunding railways being misleading?
When the accident happened in a different rail network than the one you're highlighting as being underfunded, yes, of course. In what world wouldn't this be misleading?
Not even our shit TV networks does stuff like that, and they're generally very quick at being partisan and misleading.
Anyone serious about rail engineering or safety isn't excitedly dashing off comments pointing fingers before the dust has even settled. Those who are doing that - such as the comment I am replying to - should be ignored
> The accident occurred near Atocha station, on a curve where signage indicates a speed limit of 45 kilometers per hour. However, sources consulted by this newspaper assert that the train, out of control, easily approached speeds of 90 to 100 kilometers per hour, ultimately resulting in the derailment. [...] Two mechanics who were inside the wrecked train escaped injury.
Any indication they deliberately derailed the train?
Actually for shunting that is normal. Derailment during shunting operations is a frequent occurrence and there are derailment facilities where shunting can occur, which get activated every time a train passes. What is rare is having an actual train derail.
As I don't know whether you are referring to an actual train, or just use that as a term for moving railway cars, the answer to your question could be either yes or no.
Huh? I'm answering to a whole lot of comments, not just yours, you're not special ;)
I'm not angry at you or your comments, I'm mad about misinformation and opinion-pieces lacking nuance though, that I can confess. I have no party, I purposefully don't vote in the nationwide elections, only in local elections.
Anything else you'd like to know about me? Or we're good-to-go for second date already?
This is the problem. I'm skeptical of all our sides of government, they haven't done a lot for us to trust them, and keep chucking our trust into the bin.
But that doesn't mean we should resolve into skipping nuance, not understanding situations and critically evaluate what everyone is claiming. Mixing together two networks in order to score some cheap internet points, when the point doesn't even hold up to the most basic scrutiny, does the opposite of helping the case of proving how shit the government is.
I know nothing about Spanish politics or the railway network there, but jumping on blaming the government before even the beginning of the investigation, when we don't have a clue about the causes of the accident and when the emergency service haven't even finished recovering the victims body yet, is a revulsing attempt at political recuperation.
Not to go too off-topic but what was the last word on the internet blackout and also the (unrelated) stolen train cable wire incidents from last year? Were there any satisfying conclusions?
In both you had people saying wait till the thorough investigation finishes, but I don't recall any commotion or bells and whistles around any final reports on those events. Unless I totally missed it of course.
No idea but yeah of course it's a common tactic to squash criticism by being all haughty and saying everyone must wait for official investigations etc. There's middle ground. Especially when proper journalism is basically non existent these days
For a bit of context according to the OECD 2023 Spain had ~1800 on the road during the previous year, so that's about 5/day. There are more deaths on the road in Spain in a couple of weeks than this tragic accident. Either way it's too many deaths obviously but I want to highlight what a freak event this is compared to a more popular mode of transportation.
As an American with no good rails, I've always been curious: what stops a crazy person from throwing a boulder onto the high speed tracks, or a raccoon getting on it, or other such derailment attempts? Is there high security electric fencing all around the track the whole route or something like that?
Animals on tracks remain a problem, although they do not pose risk to human life (just damages to the trains). One of the attempts to protect animals include acoustic deterrents, here's a Polish one as an example [1] but they are manufactured around the world. The Polish one plays sounds of predators, dying creatures, hunting dogs, etc to scare away forest animals (search for "UOZ-1" on youtube if you want to hear the sounds). Such devices significantly lower the number of collisions but unfortunately they are not 100% effective.
Animals become a fine red mist when presented with these sorts of forces. The train feels a bump, but will not crash. I'm unsure at what size a rock will cause issues, but I would expect in most cases they would be kicked away by the train without issue, if a person can move them.
The brand new fastest rail in the country is barely over half the speed of the Shanghai bullet train, so I have to disagree about our rails being "good" even in the best case.
Yes. The Frecciarossa 1000 (ETR 1000) is an EMU, and the trainset’s coaches/cars are equipped with braking equipment as part of the integrated braking system—so it’s not “only the power cars” doing the braking.
So my first gut instinct is that one wagons breaks malfunctioned and suddenly applied breaking power since it was the last two wagons that went off.
That’s how every train works since this system was made mandatory in the US in 1893(!). Asymmetric breaking does not cause cars to come off. The joint is stronger than the breaking force.
Anyway, we know it was a portion of the track that had a weld fracture.
After the TV videos, it seems that a chunk of 80cm or one meter of the railway was missing, or broke by the train passing.
Just to add context:
In 2025 August, the Spanish government blocked the attempt from Ganz MaVag Europe to buy Talgo, the main Spanish train maker. Ganz Magyar Vagon is an Hungarian company linked with Oil oligarchs close to the Victor Orban government. The government alleged National Security reasons when the National Intelligence Center started to suspect that the operation was really funded by a Russian Company, lending money to the Hungarians, via Corvinus International Investment Ltd.
So it seems that Moscow could be trying to gain access to the Spanish train technology for some reason.
Also, this crash happened in Andalucia. On 8 January 2026 the high velocity trains in Andalucia were delayed some hours by somebody stealing small amounts of copper cable from several vital parts of the system. It was ruled as common thievery, and it was not the first time. Similar events on may 2025:
Stealing copper from the Spanish railway is like an Olympic sport lately. It seems strangely common on the previous hours to a big holiday, election or major event.
The problem is causing serious economic damage and lots of troubles to the users of the Spanish Commuter rail system "Cercanias" and now escalated also to the high speed railway. The troubles with Cercanias can be often attributed to poor maintenance, but sometimes include also somebody placing rocks and trunks directly on the railway with the mere purpose to create chaos.
EU is on an hybrid war with Russia, and that there are many documented boycotts against relevant European infrastructure, like the regular cut of submarine cables. At this moment is to soon to discard anything.
Train crashes like this are _so_ rare. It's not as safe as flying but AFAICT in rich countries it's the same rough order of magnitude in terms of danger level.
I don't have data but I would imagine crashes on these high speed lines (which always seem to be run at a higher level of professionalism than the general networks) are rarest of all.
I don't think it's a good use of mental energy to plan for a crash like this. You're better off using your brain cycles on hygiene or not losing your luggage.
At first, when seeing it was in 2015 I was extremely surprised I didn't heard about it at the time. Then I saw the date: Nov 14th 2015, just the day after the ISIS terror attacks in Paris, France's 9/11. Of course we barely heard about a train crash at that time…
I remember this day because I worked in a company that made software for train networks.
It did briefly made the news but not for long due to the terror attacks and also there wasn’t any passenger on this train, it was a train testing.
In fact the story is even more tragic when you know that the day before, they also were too fast in the same turn and in the records you hear something like « few, that was close, better take care next time ».
However, for sure this crash should have never happened but it only happened because they were testing the limits of both the train and the track.
It’s literally like a test pilot crashing an airplane while testing all the limits : it should never happen but they are still there for it not to happen in commercial flights.
> However, for sure this crash should have never happened but it only happened because they were testing the limits of both the train and the track.
No. It happened because they were under-prepared and disorganized, and thereby didn't respect the speed restrictions for the segment of track they were on.
They crashed entering a 175 km/h segment at 265 km/h, which is well above the 10% overspeed they were theoretically testing that day.
I would not consider an accident during a test run with partially disabled safety procedures a regular part of operations - on a normal run, the train should have slowed down or stopped automatically before derailing because it did significantly exceed the design speed of the track.
Most railway deaths in the EU are due to unauthorized people on the tracks or due to crossings. The actual number of passengers deaths has been really low in the past years.
In the EU it's safer than flying, with 0.5 deaths per 100 billion km/ passenger vs 3 deaths per 100 billion kms/ passenger. However, since an airplane flies at, let's say, six times the average speed of a train, the actual probability of dying during a 1-hour trip is almost 40 times more on a plane than on a train.
Do your stats include all rail? Because the average airplane definitely does not travel at 6 times the speed of high-speed rail (more like 2.5-3x), and definitely way faster than regional rail (in the order of 12x)
Brain cycles aren’t a limited supply. Besides, you’ll get to feel a nice jolt of serotonin when you remember to sit backwards.
> I would imagine crashes on these high speed lines (which always seem to be run at a higher level of professionalism than the general networks) are rarest of all
If this crash is anything like the other ones, you might be surprised. Safety complacency tends to cause maintenance failures. Plus the low speed lines are less deadly since the total energy is proportional to velocity squared, and v is low.
In other words, it might be more helpful to look at it as "if they’re run at a higher level of standards, it’s because they have to be".
Statistically you’re probably right, but considering how many brain cycles we waste on non-essentials, it’s just as fun to waste them on this. That way you can start a nerdy conversation with your travel companions, and they can learn to travel without you next time.
> Plus the low speed lines are less deadly since the total energy is proportional to velocity squared, and v is low.
You're forgetting about the probability of a crash.
The vast majority of train crashes is due to an impact with a vehicle on a railway crossing.
However, high-speed rail is grade separated, so it doesn't have railway crossings, which means the main cause of crashes is fundamentally impossible.
In other words: Regular rail has a high rate of crashes (with a small number of fatalities each) due to car/truck drivers screwing up. High-speed rail has a low rate of crashes (with a large-ish number of fatalities each) due to catastrophic failure of track & train equipment.
Zero-risk bias at work. If it’s actually fun for you, don’t let anyone stop you, but I wouldn’t go as far as making it a confident general recommendation.
This is so rare that it's not really worth thinking about, as a passenger (of course, it should be on the _operators_ minds). You're far more likely to die getting to the station.
I feel like airplanes should be designed this way. Outside of takeoff and landing it would be pretty hard to even notice the difference, once you're seated.
At least BEA airliners used to have quite a few backward facing seats, up to half the plane.
However, there were a number of problems - people didn't like sitting in them, people didn't like hearing that their seat wasn't as safe as the others, you can't get as many rows in unless you turn them all backwards, and the structure needs to be designed differently so then you need more spares.
Huh. I'd never thought of this. If that is actually meaningfully beneficial, I wonder if they'd design self driving cars with the seats facing backwards, given there's no longer a necessity to look at the road.
(edit: I guess it's more of no-brainer on a train/bus where you don't have a seat belt)
Not the author, but I think there was some research and it's indeed better for you if you have head support, to be facing back towards the front. If prevents a whole range of injuries, from your neck, to becoming a projectile yourself.
But it's really theoretical, and does not account for the passenger in front of you headed head-first into your throat.
PS: I laughed hard that xlbuttplug2 is answering to deadbabe. The internet lives!
Consider the "booth seats" in trains and busses. So people can chat etc facing each other. If you've got a waymo with your friends why wouldn't you want the seats facing each other so you can be social, excluding this safety factor.
Sitting backwards is beneficial if looking at accidents.
But sitting backwards is very very uncomfortable if there is any kind of uneven acceleration, bumps, swaying, rolling, curvy tracks or whatever. Humans need to look forward at the horizon to get their visual stimuli aligned with their motion/balance sense in the inner ear. If that alignment isn't there, you will get seasick. Backwards makes this even worse.
Babies don't suffer from this, because closing your eyes helps, and infants don't have as strong a reaction to motions anyways, due to them usually being carried by their parents until walking age. So reverse baby seats only work for babies.
That's a serious overgeneralization. It's true for some people, but trains mostly don't bump and swerve enough for that to be a significant problem. Finnish trains have lots of seats facing backwards and while they're not anywhere as fast as something like a TGV, they're still often going 200+ km/h. People seem to be just fine. I just spent 1 hour 40 minutes yesterday sitting backwards, mostly reading a book, with no ill effects.
Infant car seats face backwards, they recommend backwards facing for a long as possible (until the kid is too big to fit comfortably in a backwards facing position).
It's incredibly beneficial. However many people dislike it and want to be facing the direction they are moving in, so best case is probably a train-style 4-seater. Which 2 seats facing forward and 2 backwards.
I mean if there is actually conclusive evidence that this is safer how is it not criminal to not have all trains adhere to this? The only thing I can think of is motion sickness for some sizable minority of passengers, but even then I would expect them to know the rough percentage of passengers that would discomforted enough to not get on the train.
Recently maintained is more concerning if you look at the failure rate as a bathtub curve. Failure rates are much higher within the days after maintenance because any defects in repairs are apt to show up quickly.
Please don't post like this on HN. This kind of comment is a generic tangent (and a rather ghoulish one), that can be made about any tragedy; yes, no matter how bad something is, there's always something worse. It's the fact that this is an unusual occurrence that makes it noteworthy. The guidelines ask us to converse curiously and avoid generic tangents and shallow dismissals. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
FWIW: a single car crash killing 21 people would still be newsworthy in America. And I think if you math it out with something per capita equivalent, this would actually be an exceptionally bad day/incident for the US.
But of course you're not wrong, trains are vastly safer than private cars. If anyone uses this as evidence against having a proper rail system, they're ignorant.
But - until someone does that, there's no reason to make this about the US or cars vs. trains. It's borderline offensive to reflexively politicize this before anyone else had; it almost feels like you're intentionally trying to sow conflict, here.
Right, so, mathing it out, the US has a population of around 340 million but Spain has a population of around 49 million. 340/49 is roughly 7, so the per capita equivalent in the US would be a single incident killing 21*7=147 people. So that'd be one incident killing 1.5x the average number of people usually killed across the rest of the country combined.
A completely unremarkable day, more like it. Given stochasticity there's bound to be at least a dozen days per year with 50% more than the average, especially since car deaths depend a lot on weekday, holidays, weather and so on - much moreso than train deaths. No one would look up from it, wouldn't make the news.
> And I think if you math it out with something per capita equivalent, this would actually be an exceptionally bad day/incident for the US.
This is now how I interpreted "bad day", think it would be clearer to remove "day" if that's what you meant. Of course you're right in that it would be awful as a car accident, they simply don't happen that many as a time. Which is why our monkey brain's lack of emotional response to "many small cuts" vs "one big cut" incorrectly causes the belief that cars and e.g. coal/gas are much safer than they are.
I was born in the mid-late 80's, and I remember the 90's being an era where everyone knew in the remotest tiny village about youngsters dying in-road (usually because of being drunk). Dark ages.
You would find car related fatalities for granted every Summer in the news.
One thing I learned working on a system that did train positioning for the 7 Line subway in NYC is that train systems are a lot more complicated than just straight lines. They are complicated networks with custom signaling and the trains don't necessarily travel on the usual side in the usual direction at all times.
That said, in this particular case it basically was just two straight lines side by side and one of the trains derailed and travelled into the path of the other track.
Trains don't often derail on straight sections, likely either someone fucked up really bad on rail maintenance or someone sabotaged the rail.
The bulk of those are accidents involving railway crossings. There is a program to get rid of all level crossings in NL but it will take a lot of time and cost a ton of money. But there really is no way in which you can make a level crossing safe in combination with normal train speeds.
American trains are largely freight travelling long rural distances. You didn't mention it, so I presume because you didn't take it into account, so your statistics sound to me like they don't mean anything comparable.
Derailments are common is what the stats show. US derailments are largely property damage as they are freight centric, while in Europe, passenger deaths are higher due to more heavy passenger utilization. Derailment is hard to defend against.
What is tragic is that the high tech approach here ("super-fast trains") does not put security at the forefront. This should have been the number #1 criterium from the get go, already during the planning stage. The usual reason this is not done is because of cutting down on costs, but just simple things such as: how can it be possible that another train comes by at the same time and crashes? This would not have prevented the one train going off, but you have to wonder how that is even possible design-wise to catch two trains. And even trains going off, should not be possible - this can most assuredly be detected as it happens, so what counter-measures are available to minimize damage and maximize safety?
1. The last 3 cars from the Iryo train (Frecciarossa 1000) derailed for unknown reasons. It's a straight line, so this is extremely rare.
2. The Renfe train (Alvia) didn't have time to break and hit the derailed trains from Iryo, the two first cars derail as a consequence of the impact.
3. The Iryo train(Frecciarossa 1000), that caused the accident, was manufactured in 2022 and it passed a technical inspection just 4 days ago.
4. The renovation of this specific part of the infrastructure finished on May 2025, so it's practically new.
Spanish high speed trains are one of the best in the world and it had plenty investment from governments of different sign over the years. This has nothing to do with the regional network (Cercanias) and the local struggles in certain regions.
IMHO, this is a horribly timed accidental technical issue.
https://english.elpais.com/spain/2026-01-19/at-least-39-dead...
https://archive.ph/Ase0v
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