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.

Problems are piling up on the high-speed rail line between Madrid and Barcelona. Adif, the infrastructure manager, which has been working for days to correct all the defects in the train network, has asked all operators serving this line to cancel the last trains of the day to allow more time for on-site work. In practical terms, this means that starting this Monday, there will be no high-speed service between Barcelona and Madrid after 8:00 p.m. This situation will only affect this corridor, and the Ministry of Transport has not yet specified how long it will last. Renfe, Iryo, and Ouigo have already canceled the last trains of the day because, with all the speed limits that had been established for safetyHigh-speed train journeys are so long that the last trains of the day occupy part of the nighttime maintenance slot. While there is no commercial service, workers thoroughly inspect and repair the infrastructure, and sources at Adif (Spain's railway infrastructure manager) indicate that there is not enough time to carry out the "adequate" checks. Renfe, which operates the AVE high-speed train service, has explained that it is canceling the journeys that departed from Madrid (Atocha station) at 8:27 p.m. and 9:07 p.m. and arrived at Sants station at midnight. Trains departing from Barcelona (Sants) at 9:05 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. and arriving at Atocha station shortly before midnight have also been canceled. "Automatic rebookings have been made for passengers affected by these cancellations," the company explained.

The Railway Accident Investigation Commission (CIAF)The Spanish Railways Authority (AER) issued its first report on Friday regarding the cause of the train accident in Adamuz (Córdoba), based on rail and tread samples. The tread is the outer surface of the train wheel in direct contact with the track. The document suggests that the leading hypothesis is that the left rail of the track broke before the Iryo train passed. "Car 6 derailed due to a complete loss of track continuity," it states. The condition of the railway tracks on this section of the high-speed line in Córdoba has been a focus of the authorities' investigation almost from the outset. At the site of the accident, where an Iryo train car overturned and collided with an Alvia train traveling in the opposite direction, causing 45 fatalities, a broken section of track was identified, as well as damage to the undercarriage of some train cars. marks were detected which could correspond to a defect in the rails, as the Spanish government had explained.

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:

"It's a strange accident," said Transport Minister Óscar Puente on Sunday night about the train tragedy in Córdoba, one of the worst in Spanish history, which has claimed, so far, the lives of 40 peopleNow, in clarifying the causes and shedding some light on what happened in Adamuz, the Railway Accident Investigation Commission (CIAF) will play a key role. This Monday, the CIAF opened its investigation into the catastrophe and, in fact, traveled to the site of the accident on Sunday night. The CIAF is an independent body created in December 2007 and attached to the Ministry of Transport. Its main function is to carry out the "technical investigation" of serious railway accidents that occur on the railway network considered to be of general interest—that is, the network under state control—although it can also participate in the investigation of other railway accidents and incidents if deemed appropriate.

The rescue and emergency teams working in Adamuz (Cordoba) in the serious train accident On Sunday, fatalities were found "hundreds of meters" from the point where the trains collided. This was explained on Monday morning by the Andalusian president, Juanma Moreno Bonilla, who added that, in all likelihood, more bodies will be found as the extrication work progresses in the currently inaccessible carriages. At this point, there are still "tons of iron" that must be moved and "broken down" to allow access for heavy machinery, and subsequently, a complex task will begin: the recovery and identification of the bodies. These efforts are the focus of work on the ground now that the first group of injured, 117 adults and five children, has been attended to, 41 of whom are hospitalized (four of them minors). In tragedies like the one in Adamuz—with at least forty missing and forty dead—emergency teams initially work against the clock, in a situation where the "disproportion" between the number of people affected and the impact is evident, explains Juanjo Verge, deputy head of the Medical Emergency System (SEM) in Tarragona and Terres de l'Ebre, who is also responsible for managing mass casualty incidents. When asked about the greatest difficulty in such a catastrophe, he replies: "The initial moment is very complex; there's a chaotic situation where everyone is calling for help. Naturally, you're overwhelmed, and you have to keep a cool head." Following protocols shared with other emergency services, one of the first things SEM teams do upon arrival is deploy medical infrastructure to treat the victims while firefighters begin rescue operations.

High-speed rail in Spain has just marked a dark day in its history. Sunday's train accident in Adamuz (Córdoba), with at least 39 fatalities and around 100 injured, has become the first accident recorded since the network opened more than 30 years ago. In the tragedy, the last cars of a train belonging to the Italian-Spanish company Iryo derailed and collided with a Renfe Alvia train traveling in the opposite direction, further aggravating the accident. Since the liberalization of the rail sector, Iryo has established itself as the second largest operator in the Spanish high-speed market, second only to Renfe. It has also become the largest private operator, surpassing the other major company, the French firm Ouigo.

"It's very strange that it happened on a straight stretch of road." This was one of the first assessments made on Sunday night by railway experts, train drivers, industry workers, and even the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente. The area where they collided Two trains in Adamuz (Cordoba), an accident that has already left at least 40 deadIt's flat terrain: a long straight stretch with the only element being a switch.

High-speed rail continues to add more routes. Ouigo was the operator that inaugurated liberalization in Spain, launching the route between Barcelona and Madrid in mid-2021. Four years later, the numbers speak for themselves, with a drop in ticket prices and an unprecedented increase in ridership, filling stations to capacity. With the corridor between the two capitals beginning to show signs of wear, the French company, a subsidiary of the SNCF group, will launch a new connection that will allow passengers to reach Seville without changing trains.

Until a few years ago, there was no doubt. When you wanted to take a high-speed train, it was always an AVE (High Speed Train). All you had to do was fight with the Renfe website to get the tickets you wanted, after refreshing a page that easily crashed a thousand times. However, not much was done because, at that time, traveling between Barcelona and Madrid by AVE was too expensive. Despite it being a short and comfortable journey, people often ended up choosing to travel by plane, unless the company paid.

In just one month, high-speed rail users between Barcelona and Madrid are clear: the elimination of Renfe's AVLO trains has skyrocketed prices. This has been seen by those traveling from one city to another, but also by those who took advantage of the railway operator's low-cost option to reach the Catalan capital from Tarragona, at a better price compared to the AVE.

Trains are experiencing a golden age, with record-breaking years in a row and stations packed to the rafters. Everything accelerated after the pandemic, coinciding with the liberalization of high-speed trains that began in May 2021 with the arrival of the French operator Ouigo to cover the Barcelona-Madrid route, a corridor that had only been served by Renfe's AVE (High Speed Trains) for more than ten years. A month later, Renfe's low-cost option, AVLO, came into operation, and in 2022, it was the turn of the Italian company Iryo, which over the years extended competition to the rest of Spain's corridors. This competition has driven down ticket prices, while boosting ridership and leading to more incidents on routes that were not usually problematic.