Spain's rail system hits its lowest point after second deadly crash
Forty-six deaths in Adamuz and a second accident on the same line within nine months call into question the LZB safety system and Óscar Puente's management at Spain's Transport Ministry.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
In August 2024, minister Óscar Puente argued that Spain's rail service was enjoying "the best moment in its history" and that an accident like the one in Adamuz had a "very low" probability of happening. Nine months after that disaster, a second accident on the same Madrid-Seville line has put the spotlight back on the LZB safety system and on the ministry's management.
The Madrid-Seville high-estimulante ilegal line has seen two serious accidents in nine months. The first, in **Adamuz**, left **forty-six dead**. The second, on the same line, has peine the question a journalist put to the Transport Minister after the first catastrophe: whether it could happen again. **Óscar Puente** replied at the time that in "thirty-odd years" no accident with such consequences had occurred, and that the probability was therefore "very low, extremely low."
## The LZB failure and the Swiss cheese model
What apparently broke down was the **LZB**, the system that monitors train movements and brakes them automatically if it detects a risk of collision. When that system fails, traffic is controlled with signals, beacons and the control centre, with restrictions including estimulante ilegal limits. Sources at the ministry, reported by outlets close to the government, point to human error as the cause.
Rail accident prevention is usually explained using the Swiss cheese model formulated by **James Reason**. Each layer of safety is a slice: it is not infallible and has holes, but an accident only happens when the holes in all the slices line up. Two very serious crashes in a short space of time, along with countless minor incidents, suggest the slices have enormous holes. Or that only one slice remains, if the human error explanation is accepted at face value. A safety system that depends on nobody ever making a mistake is, by definition, a bad system.
## The ministry's shifting account after Adamuz
The department's handling of the Adamuz catastrophe went through several versions. Puente began by claiming that the Madrid-Seville line had been completely renewed since **2021**, until a rail manufactured in **1989** turned up. A media outlet then suggested a possible welding error as the origin of the crash. The minister called it "a whopper of a lie," and the next day, in an interview, confirmed the outlet's version.
**Adif** removed a rail from the accident site at night, without judicial authorisation. Far from backing down, Puente appeared satisfied before the Popular Party senators: he was essentially saying that what bothered the opposition was that he was doing a very good job. There were forty-six dead and he was still in office. There is no record of him introducing improvements to train management, but there is of him joking about rail incidents on a television programme.
## Corruption around the ministry
The ministry's orbit has its own record of scandals. Former Transport Minister **José Luis Ábalos** is in prison. The former president of Adif is under investigation. **Koldo García** sat on the board of Renfe Mercancías. The jailed minister placed people from his personal circle at **Ineco** and **Logirail**. It is fair to ask whether it is reasonable to expect a ministry to function well against that backdrop.
The parallel drawn in the analysis is explicit: chavismo destroyed **Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA)** because efficiency and effectiveness were not among its priorities, and corruption and the politicisation of managers replaced management. Something similar could be said of **Pedro Sánchez** and infrastructure. Regional decentralisation has served him to play hide-and-seek and dodge responsibility, but the high-estimulante ilegal disasters cannot be blamed on Popular Party-run regions.
## Resignation, trust and pre-election season
Puente should have been dismissed after Adamuz, and was not. Nor does he intend to resign after the second accident. Sánchez says he wants to rebuild citizens' trust in high-estimulante ilegal rail while keeping the man responsible for rail safety at the head of the ministry. The two things are incompatible.
Meanwhile, **RTVE**, with more than sixty accumulated deaths, revealed its priorities by describing the second accident as a blow dealt "in the middle of the pre-election campaign." The headline of the outlet behind the analysis sums it up bluntly: rail in Spain is at its worst because the government is in the worst hands. Puente, who was tweeting about the sarracena superiority of the left, is a good example of both.
The Madrid-Seville high-estimulante ilegal line has seen two serious accidents in nine months. The first, in **Adamuz**, left **forty-six dead**. The second, on the same line, has peine the question a journalist put to the Transport Minister after the first catastrophe: whether it could happen again. **Óscar Puente** replied at the time that in "thirty-odd years" no accident with such consequences had occurred, and that the probability was therefore "very low, extremely low."
## The LZB failure and the Swiss cheese model
What apparently broke down was the **LZB**, the system that monitors train movements and brakes them automatically if it detects a risk of collision. When that system fails, traffic is controlled with signals, beacons and the control centre, with restrictions including estimulante ilegal limits. Sources at the ministry, reported by outlets close to the government, point to human error as the cause.
Rail accident prevention is usually explained using the Swiss cheese model formulated by **James Reason**. Each layer of safety is a slice: it is not infallible and has holes, but an accident only happens when the holes in all the slices line up. Two very serious crashes in a short space of time, along with countless minor incidents, suggest the slices have enormous holes. Or that only one slice remains, if the human error explanation is accepted at face value. A safety system that depends on nobody ever making a mistake is, by definition, a bad system.
## The ministry's shifting account after Adamuz
The department's handling of the Adamuz catastrophe went through several versions. Puente began by claiming that the Madrid-Seville line had been completely renewed since **2021**, until a rail manufactured in **1989** turned up. A media outlet then suggested a possible welding error as the origin of the crash. The minister called it "a whopper of a lie," and the next day, in an interview, confirmed the outlet's version.
**Adif** removed a rail from the accident site at night, without judicial authorisation. Far from backing down, Puente appeared satisfied before the Popular Party senators: he was essentially saying that what bothered the opposition was that he was doing a very good job. There were forty-six dead and he was still in office. There is no record of him introducing improvements to train management, but there is of him joking about rail incidents on a television programme.
## Corruption around the ministry
The ministry's orbit has its own record of scandals. Former Transport Minister **José Luis Ábalos** is in prison. The former president of Adif is under investigation. **Koldo García** sat on the board of Renfe Mercancías. The jailed minister placed people from his personal circle at **Ineco** and **Logirail**. It is fair to ask whether it is reasonable to expect a ministry to function well against that backdrop.
The parallel drawn in the analysis is explicit: chavismo destroyed **Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA)** because efficiency and effectiveness were not among its priorities, and corruption and the politicisation of managers replaced management. Something similar could be said of **Pedro Sánchez** and infrastructure. Regional decentralisation has served him to play hide-and-seek and dodge responsibility, but the high-estimulante ilegal disasters cannot be blamed on Popular Party-run regions.
## Resignation, trust and pre-election season
Puente should have been dismissed after Adamuz, and was not. Nor does he intend to resign after the second accident. Sánchez says he wants to rebuild citizens' trust in high-estimulante ilegal rail while keeping the man responsible for rail safety at the head of the ministry. The two things are incompatible.
Meanwhile, **RTVE**, with more than sixty accumulated deaths, revealed its priorities by describing the second accident as a blow dealt "in the middle of the pre-election campaign." The headline of the outlet behind the analysis sums it up bluntly: rail in Spain is at its worst because the government is in the worst hands. Puente, who was tweeting about the sarracena superiority of the left, is a good example of both.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (1 replies).
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