Spanish transport secretary resigns after new trains too big for tunnels

[bill937ca]

Spain’s secretary of state for transport and the head of the state rail company have resigned amid continuing public and political anger after it emerged that dozens of new trains ordered for two northern Spanish regions were too big to fit through some tunnels.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/21/spanish-transport-secretary-resigns-new-renfe-trains-too-big-for-tunnels

 

Also a BBC report.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64717605

[miyakoji]

And wasn't it in France that some new type wouldn't clear the platform edges?  I hope some review is done about how this happens, and is shared amongst companies and agencies worldwide.

Edited February 21, 2023 by miyakoji

[bill937ca]

Smart operators have a clearance car before they place the order and test all the nooks and crannies.

[katoftw]

It happens more frequently nowadays cos the outsource everything to non railway engineers and designers.

 

Any investigation and report will go straight into the bin, as management will deem any recomme dating as too costly.

[Giugiaro]

11 hours ago, bill937ca said:

Smart operators have a clearance car before they place the order and test all the nooks and crannies.

 

Or you just send your widest fat boy and wing it.
If it fits, it's within the standard loading gauge. If not, it's time to call the infrastructure manager and ask some serious questions.

 

This happened twice in Portugal. CP sent both a 3500 and a 3400 in two different points in time to the Cascais Line, and in both occasions the problem remained:
The platforms were out of gauge, and the infrastructure manager kept lying about the line's loading gauge.

 

This video shows those tests with the CP 3400 EMU, being hauled by a resident 3150:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ3VLaxBL8I

Edited February 22, 2023 by Giugiaro

[Nick_Burman]

AFAIU the issue is a wee more complex and it concerns FEVE (who runs the meter gauge network across northern Spain) rather than RENFE. Recently the Spanish government decided to fold FEVE into RENFE; the management of the infrastructure was passed to ADIF who maintains the tracks, while operations were taken over by RENFE. From what I gathered from comments by Spanish enthusiasts, the merger has not been a felicitous one as a lot of former FEVE management posts were eliminated and consolidated inside RENFE, with broad gauge managers taking over, most of whom have little of no knowledge of what happens on the ("new") meter gauge side of the business. When FEVE still existed its staff and management gained a reputation of doing a good job with often inadequate funding, plus the fact that they knew the system and its peculiarities with the back of their hands. It seems that their RENFE/ADIF successors are less adroit at it...

 

Cheers NB