Renfe has already begun the tasks to dismantle the train that caught fire on Monday on the high-speed line between Barcelona and Madrid and which has kept this corridor running at half capacity since then. The work to remove this part of the train, the most complicated one, began on the night between Thursday and Friday. Once cleared of scrap metal, it will be necessary to check the condition of the track and the catenary and, if necessary, repair it. Nevertheless, the infrastructure manager, Adif, is maintaining the planned schedule and expects that the line will be able to return to normal next week. Even so, at this time neither Renfe nor Adif can specify which exact day it will be possible to return to circulating on both tracks.

Normal high-speed rail service between Barcelona and Madrid will not be restored until the beginning of next week. This was announced this Wednesday by the new spokesperson for Adif in Catalonia, Antonio Carmona, who explained that the work to remove the train affected by Monday's fire is complex and can only be carried out at night, because it is incompatible with train traffic on the adjacent track.

The railway chaos due to the fire on a high-speed train continues this Tuesday morning. Train circulation resumed yesterday, after being halted all afternoon, but trains can only run on a single track in a specific section in Aragon, which greatly complicates the mobility of the trains and the more than 11,000 passengers affected yesterday.

Competition has warned Renfe and established that it must open its workshops in La Sagra, Toledo, to the competitor operator in high-speed Iryo to be able to carry out the maintenance of its trains. The National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) has partially upheld Iryo's complaint about access to Renfe's heavy maintenance facilities. As the supervisory body communicated this Tuesday, Renfe Mantenimiento must allow Iryo's trains access to the workshop for the disassembly and assembly of their bogies.

When at the beginning of the year the big Rodalies crisis broke out –after the fatal accident in Gelida and the numerous damages caused by two storms– many users looked for an alternative to avoid the incidents of the conventional service. Those who could, switched to Avant trains: they are more expensive, but also faster, as they run between cities on the high-speed network with regulated fares, and accumulate many fewer delays. For many travelers, arriving on time for work, a medical appointment, or university has already become a priority that weighs more than the cost of the ticket.

High-speed rail wins by a large margin in terms of passenger numbers on the main state corridors, but despite this, the number of planes making the same journeys has not decreased, although it is true that the number of seats offered by airlines has fallen. This is the main conclusion of an article prepared by researchers from the University of Barcelona, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and the Open University of Catalonia, signed by Daniel Albalate, director of the Observatory of Analysis and Evaluation of Public Policies at the UB; Albert Gragera, professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the UAB, and Pere Suau, head of the Sustainability, Management and Transport Research Group (SUMAT), attached to the Research Centre on Digital Transformation and Governance (UOC-DIGIT), and professor of Economics and Business studies.

Traveling from Barcelona to Madrid by high-speed train now costs 44% less than five years ago, when the sector's liberalization began. Although prices have rebounded this year by 9% compared to 2025, the ticket price is now clearly lower than in 2019, according to data from Trainline, the train and bus ticket sales platform.

The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) calculates that more than 509,000 travelers have given up using high-speed trains between Madrid and Barcelona compared to the times when they made the journey in "historical best times".

California has been planning a high-speed rail line for years, but construction is progressing very slowly and only a few sections have been completed; Spain, however, has one of the most extensive high-speed rail networks in the world and continues to open new sections. Excessive regulation, institutional obstacles, and the way politicians respond to local interests explain why so much is being built in Spain and so little in the United States.

Slow service, delays, and maintenance work on the high-speed rail line between Barcelona and Madrid have forced the train companies operating the service—Renfe, Iryo, and Ouigo—to adjust their schedules. Specifically, the rail operators have agreed with Adif, the company responsible for managing and maintaining the infrastructure, to establish new timetables starting this Thursday, February 5, and extend the journey time between Barcelona and Madrid by approximately 25 minutes, according to sources at the Ministry of Labor. As an alternative that is growing in demand these days, Iberia has decided to cap economy class fares on flights from Barcelona to Madrid at 99 euros until February 19. On the high-speed rail network, as explained this Monday, the last trains running each day on this corridor will be eliminated, as they were arriving within the maintenance window during which Adif is dedicated to inspecting and repairing the infrastructure, the source of the current problems.

The rail chaos that Catalonia has been experiencing for the past week is worsening. The closure of the Rubí tunnel has disrupted freight traffic leaving the Port of Barcelona bound for France. After detecting a crack in the tunnel's return section, the port has had to completely halt traffic since Monday. The disruption in Rubí, which has persisted for days, prevents trains from Barcelona and southern Catalonia from reaching the rest of the continent, as well as preventing trains from arriving from France.

"I'm informing you that we're stopped. We'll resume our journey shortly, but we don't know when. We're stopped due to traffic on the network and the snow. And also due to structural problems." This message, issued this afternoon by a driver of a high-speed train stopped between Barcelona and Madrid, reflects the chaos on the AVE high-speed rail lines in recent hours. This chaos adds to the disruption experienced in recent days on the Cercanías commuter rail network. Furthermore, flights departing from Madrid are also experiencing delays this Wednesday due to the snowstorm.

TheInvestigation into Sunday night's train crash in AdamuzThe train crash, which has already left 42 dead, more than a hundred injured, and 43 missing, continues. Moments after the Adamuz train accident, the driver of the Iryo company contacted the Adif control center in Atocha to warn that he had experienced a "coupler" near the town in Córdoba province. The communication, recorded on the train's black box and published by [unclear - possibly "the train" or "the train"].Eldiario.esThe recording contains the initial description of what happened, when the driver still didn't have a complete understanding of the derailment or the extent of the collision with the other train involved. Far from clarifying the facts, however, the audio has raised many questions. How could neither the driver nor the control personnel mention the collision with the Alvia train? How could the control personnel say that "no other train is coming"? The ARA (Argentine Radio and Television Archive) has spoken with several train drivers and experts who, with their experience, provide the necessary context to interpret this call. This is a reconstruction of what likely happened in the minutes following the fatal collision and the call:

The Investigation into Sunday night's train crash in AdamuzThe tragedy, which has already left 43 dead, more than a hundred injured, and some forty missing, continues. Moments after the Adamuz train accident, the driver of the Iryo company contacted the Adif control center in Atocha to warn that he had experienced a "coupler" near the town in Córdoba province. The communication, recorded on the train's black box and published by [unclear - possibly "new trains" or "trains"]. Eldiario.es, includes the first description of what happened, when the driver still did not have a complete perception of the derailment or the extent of the collision with the other train involved.

Adif reversed course hours after lifting the speed limit on the Barcelona-Madrid high-speed rail line and announcing that it would only remain in place at four points, where trains must travel at 230 km/h instead of 300 km/h. Adif sources reported that, following a complaint from a train driver who "reported the alleged poor condition of several sections of the track," they were forced to reinstate the speed limit to 160 km/h on another stretch. This means reinstating the measure that was already applied Tuesday afternoon to 150 kilometers of this 667-kilometer line, which had been lifted early Wednesday morning. From now on, the 160 km/h limit will be applied again on a section between kilometer markers 100 and 178, between Madrid and Zaragoza.

As the hours pass, Investigation into Sunday night's train crash in AdamuzThe train crash, which has already left 42 dead, more than a hundred injured, and 43 missing, is increasingly focusing on the condition of the tracks. Investigation teams are working with all hypotheses open, but have concentrated on several rail breaks detected along the stretch of track where the accident occurred. In an interview Monday night on TVE, Transport Minister Óscar Puente admitted that, indeed, "there are pieces of broken rail in several places." "We have detected an initial break, but the crucial question is whether it is the cause or the consequence of the accident," the minister explained. In other words, the teams are now trying to determine whether the rail broke at some point and this caused the derailment, or whether, on the contrary, the train's derailment and the subsequent collision—and the dragging of all the rolling stock—damaged the tracks.

Two high-speed trains derailed Sunday night in Adamuz (Córdoba), leaving at least 21 dead and 30 seriously injured. Nearly 500 people were traveling on both trains. The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, appeared shortly after midnight and explained that no one remained at the scene requiring medical attention, as all the injured had been transported. He also lamented, however, that the recovery of the deceased was still underway. Emergency services were dispatched to the scene, and around 11 p.m. it was confirmed that the Military Emergency Unit (UME) would be deployed, according to sources at the Ministry of Defense. Civil Guard sources informed EFE that those with minor injuries in the accident, as well as relatives of the passengers, were being taken to the Adamuz sports center.

This week the new Cercanías Cataluña commuter rail line has started operating. This joint venture between Renfe (State) and the Generalitat This marks a turning point in the transfer of the Cercanías commuter rail network and represents a complete overhaul of railway management, which will now be based in Catalonia. However, the Minister of Territory – and now also president of the new company – Sílvia Paneque, has already made it clear that "the changes will not be immediate," but that improvements should begin to be noticeable as the new Cercanías team assumes its responsibilities. Among the more than one hundred projects underway, these are the main challenges that the network (and the new company) must address in 2026:

The case of the new parking lot at Camp de Tarragona station perfectly illustrates the extent to which users are irrelevant to the Spanish managers of state-owned railway infrastructure in Catalonia. True to its name, the station is located neither in Tarragona nor in Reus, where it would logically have to be, but rather in the municipality of La Secuita, meaning that access is always by car. The paid parking that has been in operation until now costs €2 per hour, so the shoulders of the access road were full of illegally parked cars, making them vulnerable to all sorts of thefts, broken windows, and even fires. Until yesterday, when Adif, after placing concrete blocks on the shoulders, opened a free, reasonably monitored, and temporary 126-space parking lot, awaiting a permanent, low-cost (or so they say) 600-space parking lot that will become operational once the Generalitat (Catalan government) builds a roundabout, the plans for which are barely complete.

The attempts by the Ministry of Transport and Renfe to improve and modernize rail fares in 2026 have failed to convince users. This time it's the passengers of Avant trains, Renfe's high-speed service with regulated prices – which in practice functions as an extension of regional trains or an alternative to commuter rail– those who have rebelled and denounce the new payment system, the so-called The Vía Pass is "opaque" and generates a "hidden price increase."