Conflicting accounts emerge after Spanish train collision

A private rail operator and the Spanish government have offered conflicting accounts of the cause of Europe's deadliest train collision since 2013, according to local reports.

At least 68 people have died, and dozens more are injured, after two high-speed trains collided in the Toledo region on Wednesday morning, local time.

A train operated by the state-owned RENFE company struck the rear of another train operated by private company Iryo that was stopped on the tracks.

Spain's transport minister, Óscar Puente, said that at 8:30am the signalling system on a 63-kilometre stretch stopped working due to a computer malfunction, causing all trains on that section to stop.

According to Spanish masthead El Mundo, the private Iryo train had not resumed its journey yet because the state-owned control centre had instructed it to reset the train's system after the track signalling malfunction.

The reset manoeuvre "takes several minutes," and therefore Iryo "did not have authorisation to continue," sources from the company's management told El Mundo.

However, Mr Puente said some of the six trains that were stopped after the signalling system failure had been ordered to continue.

Iryo maintains that it never received such an order and therefore kept the train stopped, El Mundo said.

Meanwhile, the control centre ordered the state-owned RENFE train to "resume its journey at normal speed," which would eventually collide with the rear of the stationary Iryo train further down the track.

The RENFE train reaches speeds of up to 200 kilometres an hour. It is still unclear what speed the train was travelling at impact.

Mr Puente said the RENFE train should never have been told to start moving again because a "stop signal" was active for that line.

"The decision to resume traffic while that system had not been restored belongs to the control centre, and the control centre … took the decision to resume traffic in circumstances that, from our point of view, are inexplicable," Mr Puente said.

In Spain, communications between train drivers and traffic controllers are recorded, and will become a key component of the investigation into what led to the collision.

In the interim, questions remain regarding what signal was given to which train, and at what times.

Signalling system mid-replacement

The Madrid-Seville high-line, where this collision occurred, uses the Linienzugbeeinflussung (LZB) signalling system.

The LZB continuously monitors train speeds and can intervene if limits are exceeded.

When the LZB safety system reportedly failed on Wednesday, the eight trains along the stretch of the track were asked to halt, moving the control centres to manual operation.

The events that came after are at this stage understood to be human error, and not directly caused by the LZB failing.

However, the system is currently being phased out across Europe by the newer European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS).

The European Union says the adoption of the ERTMS system will increase "the speed of trains, the capacity of infrastructure and the level of safety in rail transport" by standardising train signalling across the continent by 2050.

Local news outlets have reported that the stretch of track where the collision occurred was still being upgraded from LZB to ERTMS.

Union demands Puente's resignation

The CSIF trade union in Spain has asked for Mr Puente's resignation.

In a post on X, the union said: "We ask the Government to respect the investigation and the presumption of innocence for the person in charge of Adif's traffic operations.

"We demand that the minister assume his responsibilities instead of shamefully using a hardworking person as a 'scapegoat'."

The CSIF raised concerns earlier this year after another collision between two high-speed trains outside the southern village of Adamuz in January left 46 dead.

That crash was Spain's deadliest train accident since 2013, when 80 people died after a train veered off a curved section of track outside the north-western city of Santiago de Compostela.

The Adamuz crash also occurred along the Madrid-Seville high-line, where Wednesday's accident occurred.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Spain would observe three days of mourning from Thursday, conceding it was "not acceptable" that two high-speed collisions could happen within months.

Spain's high-speed rail network has received huge investment in recent years, becoming the second-largest in the world after China's and a source of national pride.

About 26 million passengers used the network between January and August this year.