An ouigo train that stood on the train tracks was that it occurred last Monday in the high -speed line between Madrid and Andalusia, according to the analysis performed by ADIF, the public manager of the railway infrastructure. For its part, the specialist in railway manufacturing and maintenance has defended this morning the reliability of the 16 trains of the French operator. The president of the industrial firm for the Spanish market, Leopoldo Maesu, has assured that no technical incidence has been recorded, even after Ouigo has asked for information from his company in this regard: “We have not detected any anomaly, or that Monday or later.”
Specifically, an ouigo train lost the verification with the signal systems and was stopped on the road, which caused up to four convoys in a seven -kilometer stretch had to stop in chain. During the arrest, all the affected trains continued to demand tension to the catenary at very specific points. As a result of that high demand, the catenary was saturated and broke on the train that stood behind the ouigo, which was a renfe avant, in a section of road between the YELES and La Sagra, in the province of Toledo.
Therefore, the Ouigo train is the origin of the incidence, since its stop forced to stop the trains that came from behind, but is not the culprit in itself, because the reason that caused all the problems was the accumulation of so many trains stopped in the same section, demanding electricity.
Therefore, Adif has already announced that it will undertake an emergency action within one week to change the location of several elements of the catenary considered “highly sensitive” in that area of the Sagra and thus minimize, thus, the risk of incidents due to lack of tension derived from problems in the catenary, especially in the high speed southern corridor.
Specifically, ADIF maintenance and electrification equipment will proceed in the next few days to move between 600 and 900 meters the catenary section, with the aim of preventing in the future for a train that must be stopped “for any reason” do so under this piece, “highly sensitive”, said Adif.
The infrastructure manager defends that this incidence is not related to the state of the catenary, which was “satisfactorily” reviewed last May. On the 4th of that month there was a similar fact, when the catenary fell on an Iryo train in that same area. That operator pointed to a ‘hook’ with the catenary, information that did not allow Adif to carry out the analysis that has now been completed, concluding that in both cases the fall of the catenary occurred by an overthening.
Montero explanations and Alstom’s response
This analysis of Adifs corroborates in part the version that the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, gave Wednesday in an informal talk that the cameras captured on the occasion of a meeting between PSOE and add.
“Ouigo machines have difficulties, they stop easily and cause you a delay throughout the chain. It has maintenance services that we from Renfe are provided. They do not remove the trains from the tracks or take time to remove a train from the tracks and affect the entire chain,” said Montero.
In this regard, Leopoldo Maestu has been convinced of the good state of fleet. “The Ouigo trains were seven years old when they arrived in Spain, which is a very young age for a train, and present high reliability,” said Maestu in a meeting with means planned for the presentation of the company’s results in fiscal year 2024-2025.
Previously, Ouigo had already responded to the vice president that her trains did not cause the incidence, since her train is not directly responsible for the fall of the catenary, but that other trains behind. The French operator also denied the minister as regards the maintenance of trains, since in that case that service is provided by the company itself and does not renfe, as Montero said.
