Aznar, Magdalena Álvarez or Óscar Puente: this is how the train has been ruined in Spain

We have been talking about nothing but the train accident in Toledo for 24 hours now, where 68 people have died as of yesterday, for the moment. So I take all the preliminaries as read. Political consequences: trains in Toledo, where 68 people have died as of yesterday, for the moment. So I take all the preliminaries as read. Political consequences: Óscar Puente cannot continue to be minister of Transport for even one more minute. This year 2026, 115 people have been killed on Spanish trains: 46 in Andalusia, 1 in Gelida and 68 in Toledo. And one accident is a tragedy. Three accidents with 115 deaths are not just three tragedies. They are the system.

I say this because yesterday Minister Puente, except for saying their name, clearly pointed out the person at the control center who allegedly gave an incorrect order. Well, if they had to give it, it is because the system did not work. And in January, in Andalusia, the track maintenance work at the point where the train derailed was poorly done and no one checked its quality. Did the worker do it wrong? Yes. But the control system failed. It is the system, Minister. You know that anywhere in the world you should have already resigned. And above you, Pedro Sánchez, if you do not resign, should dismiss you.

Puente has not only become sadly famous for the deadly accidents but also for being the “wild boar” minister of the PSOE. It is certainly a very unfortunate way to pass through politics.

The system also means talking about how and why high-speed rail was built in Spain. Look, in the last few hours I have been speaking with engineers who know about it. And I have gone to the newspaper archives.

José María Aznar, inauguration speech, April 25, 2000: “The existence of healthy public finances will allow us a high-speed railway network that, in ten years, will place all provincial capitals less than four hours from the center of the Peninsula[...]”. Result? A radial scheme of high-speed lines, neglect of transversal corridors, such as the Mediterranean one.

Particularly significant was the period under the socialist minister Magdalena Álvarez. December 2007: “High speed is sewing our country together with steel cables, uniting it, connecting it, and making us feel more Spanish through high speed”.

Result of the obsession with building high-speed rail: abandonment of Commuter trains and freight transport by train. I quote a technician: “The magnitude of the absurdity has been such that the AIReF, in a report, warned that in 2014 only 11% of Adif's resources went to Commuter and medium-distance lines, while 89% (more than 2.5 billion) allowed that, despite the public finance crisis, the plans for the extension of the new radial lines enjoyed a large economic endowment”.

One last fact: in 2022, Spain spent half as much on maintaining each kilometer as the European Union average. Half. When it turns out we have the second-largest high-speed rail network in the world, behind China. And when it turns out more passengers are traveling on it than ever before, today twice as many travel than in 2019.

They built the AVE to recentralize Spain and to look modern, and now the whole world has to talk about fatal accidents on the Spanish network. They have built a lot, but have maintained little.

I quote the expert: “That railway culture based on the fact that trains arrived punctual and clean at the platforms has been replaced by a crazy race to be the first in the European ranking of high-speed line mileage, a quite ridiculous race when the position occupied is quite lagging regarding the use of the network. It is necessary to recover the culture of maintenance, the care for railway heritage and, above all, the obsession with the good functioning of the service. There is a need for people involved in the railway service who feel proud of their work and have as a permanent goal providing the citizenry with a first-class service”. And that is what we do not have. Unfortunately.

Good morning.