The intention of the Spanish public rail operator, Renfe, was good: to renovate the railway fleet of Cantabria and Asturias, in the north of the country, which is forty years old and more and more prone to damage. But the miscalculation that crept into its specifications could cost it dearly. The indicated dimensions of the trains, in fact, were too large.
So much so that if the Basque railway manufacturer CAF had been content to follow the indications provided to it by Renfe, in 2020, when it won the call for tenders, the thirty-one meter gauge trains that it would have delivered would not have entered the tunnels… The constructor realized this relatively in time, at the time of the design, which did not prevent delivery from suffering a delay of two to three years, and the project, initially estimated at 258 million euros, to suffer from a certain additional cost, of an amount still unknown.
“I hope some heads will roll! », reacted, Thursday, February 2, the president of the regional government of Cantabria, Miguel Angel Revilla, without hiding his anger against what he described as “monumental pig work”. Spanish Transport Minister Raquel Sanchez apologized and took it literally. On Saturday February 4, it announced the dismissal of the former head of material management at Renfe when the new trains were awarded, and of the head of inspection and track technology of the rail network manager , ADIF. To start.
Overweight submarines
In addition, an internal audit was requested, at ADIF as at Renfe, in order to examine the flaws that led to the error. Finally, on Wednesday February 8, a working group bringing together all the stakeholders in the case was to meet in order to speed up the rectification process. The thirty-one regional trains were initially to be delivered in the course of 2024. Now, the ministry hopes at best to be able to have new plans this summer.
To go as quickly as possible, Renfe will make one of its old trains in circulation available to CAF, so that the company has a reference template. The command is, it is true, complex. By applying the current safety standards on this old network of narrow tracks, the width of the trains must be seriously reduced in order to keep the required distance from the walls of the tunnels. But, therefore, the carrying capacity of the trains is much lower than the current level, which can only degrade the service to passengers.
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