When a railway company orders new trains, it should make sure that they can run on the routes for which they are planned. It is now evident that this is not always the case. 31 ordered trains are too big for their area of operation.
The purchase of 31 trains from the Spanish railway company Renfe had an order volume of 258 million. She wanted to run the new trains in northern Spain, where they would replace aging train sets. But nothing will come of it. The reason: the planned trains are too big for the tunnels on the route. In 2020, the state railway company placed the order, and the error is only now becoming public knowledge. The Spanish regional newspaper El Comerciohad brought the error to light and thus made the proverbial heads roll. The Renfe president resigned this week. Lucky in disguise: Even if the error only became public in the past few weeks, it was apparently noticed internally shortly after the order was placed. None of the 31 trains have been built to date. But the replacement for the old trains has been delayed by two years and will probably only run from 2026, according to media reports.
NARROW GAUGE LINE WITH A FEW YEARS UNDER ITS BELT
The peculiarity of the railway lines in question: They lead through Asturias and Cantabria and thus through very mountainous landscape. The railway line, in turn, was built in the 19th century. This is a narrow-gauge railway line. This means that the gauge of the trains is different from what is known in large parts of Europe (and also in Spain).
According to a report in the Kölner Stadtanzeiger, the trains originally ordered are too wide for the tunnel. The error could therefore be due to a combination of circumstances caused by a renovation of the route, measurement errors and new requirements. According to this, the planned trains would theoretically fit through the tunnel, but newly defined safety distances would not be maintained.
Incidentally, the Spanish rail company Renfe wants to participate indirectly in tenders for regional transport in Germany. This is what the Czech media report . Accordingly, the Czech Leo Express, in which Renfe has a 50 percent stake, wants to take part in the tenders. A German branch of Leo Express once operated the Flixtrain , which had previously been taken over by the insolvent Locomore. The company also went bankrupt due to the Corona crisis. Whether and in which tenders the company actually wants to participate in Germany is open. Experience has shown that it will be a few years before the first trains roll.
