Spain: a fiasco on the size of trains leads to the resignation of the boss of Renfe


A train from the Spanish railway company Renfe at the platform in Principe Pio station in Madrid, September 5, 2019 (AFP/Archives/GABRIEL BOUYS)

The president of the Spanish railway company Renfe resigned Monday after more than two weeks of controversy linked to an order for regional trains too large for certain tunnels where they were supposed to pass, according to concordant sources.

Isaías Taboas, who had been at the head of the Spanish equivalent of the SNCF since June 2018, “has submitted his resignation”, a spokeswoman for the railway group told AFP.

His resignation is added to that of the Secretary of State for Transport and ex-president of Adif, manager of the Spanish rail network, Isabel Pardo de Vera, confirmed the Ministry of Transport.

Transport Minister Raquel Sanchez “expressed her gratitude to them” for “the work done in their respective functions”, underlined the ministry, in a short message sent to AFP.

The resignations come after more than two weeks of controversy over the order of 31 trains for the rail network in northern Spain, the size of which proved to be too large for some tunnels where they were supposed to pass.

This order, worth a total of 258 million euros, was awarded in June 2020 to the Spanish manufacturer of railway equipment CAF, competitor of the French Alstom and the German Siemens.

According to Renfe, it was this company, based in the Basque Country (north), which realized in March 2021 that the dimensions provided during the call for tenders were not correct.

She then alerted the authorities before starting the construction of the trains.

“There was never any risk that the wrong size trains would be built, because the manufacturer had the obligation, defined in the tender documents”, to carry out checks, Renfe told AFP. the AFP.

According to Renfe, this incident will nevertheless result in delays in the delivery of the trains, which should be put into circulation “during the year 2026”, and not in 2024 as initially planned.

This error, made public at the beginning of February, caused a strong controversy in Spain. It had already led the Ministry of Transport to dismiss from office on February 6 the former head of equipment management at Renfe and a senior official at Adif.

© 2023 AFP

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