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Two high-speed trains collide near Toledo, Spain

95 points evilmonkey19 1 hour ago 51 comments

silverFork 1 hour ago | parent

How is this even possible in this day and age. It can be all automated, double and quad checked enroute ..

Rapzid 1 hour ago | parent

It's the second time this year too. In Spain. Same company.

nom 1 hour ago | parent

apparently even the same line

paxy 1 hour ago | parent

"In this day and age" means nothing when so many of these train systems are running on technology from the mid-1900s.

FeteCommuniste 1 hour ago | parent

Spain didn't even have high-speed trains until the early 1990s so I don't think that's the case here.

paxy 1 hour ago | parent

The network started construction in the late 1980s so that's still 40 years ago. The 90s weren't as recent as we all think..

bluGill 1 hour ago | parent

Still recent enough to have computers fully able to control everything.

amiga386 11 minutes ago | parent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_train_operation

What this chart doesn't show you is how much more expensive it is to advance the grade of automation. Systems like the Docklands Railway are only safe because all their tracks are grade separated with exclusive track. They still need a person on board to be sure that nobody is stuck in the doors or wedged between the train and platform before the train starts moving.

"Have computers control everything" is four words to say, but it's millions or billions more in money, and adds years to the projects. London's Crossrail, for example, was years late due to the complexity of switching between 4 separate signalling systems (ETCS on the Heathrow branch, AWS on the GWML, TPWS on the GEML, and CBTC in their tunnel and exclusive track.)

We're still using TPWS on the ECML, for example, because:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_Protection_&_Warning_Sys...

> TPWS was developed by British Rail and its successor Railtrack, following a determination in 1994 that British Rail's Automatic Train Protection system was not economical – ATP would cost £600 million (equivalent to £1.2 billion in 2024) to implement, compared to value in lives saved: £3 – £4 million (£6 – 8 million in 2024), per life saved, which was estimated to be 2.9 per year.

TPWS is where a little light comes on saying it would be a good idea to brake now because you passed a signal at danger. Only very fancy versions of TPWS will actually apply the brakes for you.

And then we had the Southall and Ladbroke Grove crashes a few years later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladbroke_Grove_rail_crash

> Both crashes would have been prevented by an operational automatic train protection (ATP) system, wider fitting of which had been rejected on cost grounds. The crash severely damaged public confidence in the management and regulation of safety of Britain's privatised railway system.

But even then, an inquiry asked to look specifically into ATP determined we were right to reject it, it was just Too. Fucking. Expensive.

> Since both the Paddington and Southall crashes had reopened public debate on ATP, a separate joint inquiry considering the issue in the light of both crashes was also held in 2000; it confirmed the rejection of ATP and the mandatory adoption of a cheaper and less effective system, but noted a mismatch between public opinion and cost-benefit analysis.

manarth 1 hour ago | parent

It's been reported that the automated system had failed, so trains were being routed and instructed manually.

QuantumNomad_ 1 hour ago | parent

In Oslo, Norway, we have train signaling errors all the time it feels like. It leads to a lot of delays and things. But I think that when these systems are not working, it is better to slow down everything even going as far as to put some trains on hold for some time, to avoid human errors in manual instruction and routing leading to crashes and deaths.

formerly_proven 37 minutes ago | parent

Isn't speed under verbal authorization limited to like 30-40 km/h?

anthk 1 hour ago | parent

In Spain the train network was neglected so car and oil companies could earn tons of money since the 70's.

But Toledo-Madrid it's a special high speed network with thousands of daily users heading Madrid to work, which is just 1h away from Toledo.

Still, I will always be pro-train because they can mass deliver goods at much higher ratio than by truck.

Kurtz79 1 hour ago | parent

"In Spain the train network was neglected so car and oil companies could earn tons of money since the 70's."

That's patently false, as Spain has the largest High-speed rail network in the world after China and it has seen constant expansion for the last 30 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Spain

hylaride 1 hour ago | parent

Maintenance and expansion are two different things. Governments of the day tend to favour big announcements for shiny new things, while simultaneously deferring maintenance whenever they can to redirect money to various other priorities.

anthk 51 minutes ago | parent

I'm from Spain, I know it well. Just check what happened with short-distance trains.

gpvos 29 minutes ago | parent

By now, I'd ask which short-distance trains...

hdhxbsbsbshs 28 minutes ago | parent

With short-distance trains…

to pueblos with 50 people…

But sure, keep twisting the truth to suit your political agenda.

mazu3 11 minutes ago | parent

I think you have to talk about how this is measured. Their network is huge, but frequencies are low and the maintenance costs per KM of track are very high relative to ridership. If you just think about the metric of KM of high-speed track, it's true, Spain has a larger network than, for example, Japan. But Japan is sending high-speed trains down some of its lines every 3 and a half minutes! Nothing remotely like that is happening in Spain.

boringg 1 hour ago | parent

This was my immediate thought -- this is such a tragic unforced error. It seems impossible for this to happen.

gpvos 1 hour ago | parent

This route is the last of the Spanish high speed lines that still has an older train protection system. There has been a similar accident in 2002 in Germany where LZB was also used: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linienf%C3%B6rmige_Zugbeeinflu... . Now after 24 years you might think they had mitigating procedures in place...

FranOntanaya 54 minutes ago | parent

2006 subway accident in Valencia had a similar context, they used the FAP system, cheaper than ATP, which would have prevented the accident.

dist-epoch 1 hour ago | parent

> El Mundo is reporting that the Iryo train flagged a failure in its LZB signalling system 10 minutes before the crash, but the train behind did not receive the information due to a potential human error.

> Investigators believe the AVE high-speed train travelling behind crashed into the stationary Iryo service.

> A human error by an [state-owned railway infrastructure company] Adif operator in response to a malfunction in the main signaling system is the likely cause of the accident, government sources said. This safety system is automated, but when it fails, it switches to manual mode. That is why the trains came to a stop when the automatic safety system failed, and service resumed under human control - and that is where the error occurred, according to initial analyses.

https://www.elmundo.es/economia/2026/10/28/6ae1c9a1e9cf4a372...

Bluestein 1 hour ago | parent

Some further points: - Apparently some of the drivers involved were in training - Infra maintenance is abysmal. Budgets are poor and or misspent - Second time this happens, in 9 months

PS. They knew or should have known that the AVE (Alta Velocidad Española) train was ordered (manually) to continue forward, when it should not have. There was at least one known train blocking the track. The LZB system had failed - as reported by drivers systemwide. The Control Center at Atocha station decided for trains to move forward. According to the Transportation Minister this is inexplicable - even further, trains did not follow protocols beyond this: They are supposed to engage in "marcha a la vista" (very very slow, cautious, line-of-sight only traversal to the nearest destination) when in any doubt. This was not ordered, but "normal" further travel.-

Witnesses report, riders that use that same line every day, that trains were also frequently stopped yesterday - reasons unknown. But there were warning signs.-

550 souls involved. 64 fatalties. 90 wounded, 50 severe.-

hylaride 1 hour ago | parent

I was in Spain a year ago and it felt like the high speed trains weren't running as smoothly as they were when I was last there a decade earlier. At the time I chalked it up to false memories and not to judge based on vibes, but I guess my spidey senses were accurate. It also felt like a contradiction as there was a decent amount of expansion construction that I saw.

Alas, maintenance isn't sexy for governments.

ethfan 1 hour ago | parent

When LZB drops out, does the fallback to ASFA plus verbal authorization actually enforce block separation, or is it basically just driver discipline at 300 km/h?

gpvos 1 hour ago | parent

When on verbal authorization, controller discipline is probably more important than driver discipline. And I really hope they don't do that at 300 km/h.

swed420 1 hour ago | parent

Already posted 3 hours ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50271032

billbuild 1 hour ago | parent

10 deaths at last count. Amazing it's not 100% dead.

gpvos 1 hour ago | parent

64 already. Those trains are quite long and sturdy. But there will be lots of severely wounded.

purpleidea 52 minutes ago | parent

The incompetence in the world that is likely the underlying cause for this, is a serious cancer that is ruining our society. We need to speak out even against what seems like lesser issues, because we normalize that behaviour until it perverts everything.

bob1029 42 minutes ago | parent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Expertise

redoxate 34 minutes ago | parent

Your point being ?

noJiveTV 8 minutes ago | parent

you question indicates what the parent warned against

gonzalohm 37 minutes ago | parent

Incompetence on whose part?

hdhxbsbsbshs 32 minutes ago | parent

The only way to achieve higher levels of competence is to enforce higher levels of accountability. Over the last couple of years Spain has suffered major infrastructural catastrophes without any leadership being held accountable at all. It’s not unreasonable to consider jail time or even capital punishment for such gross negligence.

consumer451 16 minutes ago | parent

> or even capital punishment

You lost me at that part. It is entirely unreasonable to consider that in the vast majority of the world, where state-sanctioned killing of citizens has been abolished.

bijohugy 27 minutes ago | parent

Could it be cultural? I remember after the Asiana Airlines crash, the experts were saying part of the problem was due to culture.

cameldrv 19 minutes ago | parent

I was just listening to the EconTalk podcast, and the guest was a Spanish demographer that specifically said that Spanish train system was being starved for funding in the past 10 years or so. This is because the population is aging, and all of the growth in the economy is being directed towards pensions and health care for the rapidly growing number of retirees.

danielvaughn 20 minutes ago | parent

Ayn Rand gets a lot of hate from the philosophy world, and Atlas Shrugged is definitely not a good novel by any means, but you have to give her credit for basically predicting where we are now from way back in the 50's.

paimapi 7 minutes ago | parent

How do you even speak to the ineffable idea of 'incompetence'? How do you remediate it? More draconian, individualized worker surveillance?

This feeds into the idea that the problem with safety these days are lazy workers, not the fact that companies are increasingly extending work hours beyond what's reasonable, firing keystone employees and shoveling more work onto the remaining individuals, and operating with a general disregard of regulatory safety guidelines around training and rest.

The reality is very different: https://www.railway.supply/renfe-rejects-drivers-union-claim...

> On rolling stock, the union wants lasting technical fixes for reliability. It further calls for correct application of breaks in driving time under article 36 of Royal Decree 929/2020 and an end to the block on early-retirement reduction coefficients under Royal Decree 2621/1986. Two further demands concern a May 7 agreement on hiring new entrants as trainee drivers and a 1990 agreement on support for drivers involved in incidents where a person is hit by a train.

>On new drivers, Renfe called the claim that recruits are being kept on training scholarships false. It said none of the 402 drivers who have joined are on a scholarship.

coopykins 22 minutes ago | parent

It's become a real risk to take a train in Spain. Two severe accidents in the same year on what's typically considered the safest transport method.

I can't remember the last time I read good news related to my country.

adventured 4 minutes ago | parent

As someone from the US I have repeatedly heard that Spain's economy is doing reasonably well. And I just looked it up, unemployment is approximately the lowest it has been in two decades. Considering the post 2009 era of economic turmoil that Spain went through, that economic momentum seems like a real positive.

NoLinkToMe 4 minutes ago | parent

Doing anything is a risk. The salient thing is relative risk. Even with record levels of train accidents it’s still the safest way to travel.

The bodycount sits around 100 this year for trains and 1775 last year for cars.

Even correcting for distance travelled it’s still way more safe.

jakedata 20 minutes ago | parent

One high-speed train, one stationary train collide near Toledo, Spain. Unlike in physics class this sadly did not result in two average speed trains.

AlexITC 18 minutes ago | parent

This is a very unfortunate event,

On another topic, I shall reconsider using bus over train for my trips.

ChrisArchitect 15 minutes ago | parent

[dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50271032