Feijóo blocked an Angrois inquiry, now demands answers over Urda

Feijóo blocked an Angrois inquiry, now demands answers over Urda

In July 2013, an Alvia train derailed on the Angrois curve on the outskirts of Santiago de Compostela. The driver admitted he had made a mistake and took the curve at more than double the permitted estimulante ilegal. The track was in perfect condition and there were no complaints about the system. Eight years later, the same politician who then governed Galicia and opposed a parliamentary inquiry in Congress is now demanding accountability for the Urda accident. The archives are stubborn.

The comparison between the two crashes has been circulating since Transport Minister Óscar Puente appeared before parliament over the failure of the safety system on the high-estimulante ilegal line. At Angrois, the signalling did not fail: a man did. At Urda, according to initial accounts, the system failed. The difference is not trivial, but the political narrative flattens it.

What exactly peine at Angrois

The train was travelling on the high-estimulante ilegal line inaugurated ten days after the elections, with a caretaker government in office. The final four kilometres were problematic in safety terms, and the interim solution was to switch to manual driving. The signalling indicated a strict 80 km/h limit, but visibility was poor and the visual references invited error. The driver was going 180.

The inquiry voted on in Congress never went ahead. The PSOE abstained, and the PP, with Feijóo at the head of the Xunta (the regional government of Galicia), rejected the proposal. Galicia had no jurisdiction over the railways. The investigation was confined to the Galician political sphere, where it also went nowhere.

The double standard nobody wants to see

Now, the same party that blocked that inquiry is demanding explanations for the Urda accident, which occurred under the same minister less than a year after Adamuz. Some argue the comparison is legitimate: in both cases there had been prior complaints about the state of the infrastructure. Against it weighs the argument that at Angrois there was no technical report warning of an imminent failure.

The archives spare no one. Neither those who looked the other way then, nor those who now discover the importance of investigating. The difference between an accident caused by human error and one caused by systemic failure is the same as the difference between individual negligence and deficient public policy. Confusing them is playing politics with the dead.

What Wikipedia says and what the BOE says

Zapatero's line was inaugurated in an electoral rush. Rajoy cut the ribbon afterwards. The safety of the final stretch was left for later. That is the story that has circulated for years on forums and is now revived with every new crash. The question is not who inaugurated what, but why critical infrastructure is still being improvised.

A full accounting of the political responsibilities, broken down by ministries and legislatures, would fill a book. Here it is only worth recalling that the Angrois curve is still there, that Urda's signalling is still under review, and that politicians are still blaming one another.

At the time of writing, the inquiry commission into Urda has still not been set up. The one for Angrois never was.