Train GraphicClick on the map to explore geographics
 
I need help
FAQ
Emergency
About .
Travel & transport from BBC stories as at 00:15 29 Mar 2024
- Bus plunges off South Africa bridge, killing 45
- Easter getaways hit by travel disruption
- Where Baltimore bridge investigation goes now
- How do I renew my UK passport and what is the 10-year rule?
- Easter travel warning as millions set to hit roads
Read about the forum [here].
Register [here] - it's free.
What do I gain from registering? [here]
 02/06/24 - Summer Timetable starts
17/08/24 - Bus to Imber
27/09/25 - 200 years of passenger trains

On this day
29th Mar (1913)
Foundation of National Union or Railwaymen (*)

Train RunningCancelled
22:30 Gatwick Airport to Reading
Short Run
21:04 London Paddington to Plymouth
23:04 Reading to Bedwyn
23:17 Bedwyn to Reading
Delayed
21:45 Penzance to London Paddington
23:45 London Paddington to Penzance
PollsOpen and recent polls
Closed 2024-03-25 Easter Escape - to where?
Abbreviation pageAcronymns and abbreviations
Stn ComparatorStation Comparator
Rail newsNews Now - live rail news feed
Site Style 1 2 3 4
Next departures • Bristol Temple MeadsBath SpaChippenhamSwindonDidcot ParkwayReadingLondon PaddingtonMelksham
Exeter St DavidsTauntonWestburyTrowbridgeBristol ParkwayCardiff CentralOxfordCheltenham SpaBirmingham New Street
March 29, 2024, 00:15:53 *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Forgotten your username or password? - get a reminder
Most recently liked subjects
[98] West Wiltshire Bus Changes April 2024
[97] would you like your own LIVE train station departure board?
[86] Return of the BRUTE?
[74] Infrastructure problems in Thames Valley causing disruption el...
[53] If not HS2 to Manchester, how will traffic be carried?
[23] Reversing Beeching - bring heritage and freight lines into the...
 
News: the Great Western Coffee Shop ... keeping you up to date with travel around the South West
 
   Home   Help Search Calendar Login Register  
Pages: [1]
  Print  
Author Topic: ‘Unspeakable botch’: Spain spends €258 million on trains that are too big for it  (Read 537 times)
ChrisB
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 12334


View Profile Email
« on: February 11, 2023, 09:48:38 »

Not just in the UK (United Kingdom) then (a la 769s)

From Euronews, vai MSN

Quote
Spain has spent €258 million on trains that are too big to pass through its rail network’s tunnels.

Since the blunder was exposed by local newspaper El Comercio late last month, two transport bosses have been fired.

The 31 commuter trains were ordered by Renfe in 2020. They are set to replace an ageing fleet in the poorly connected northern autonomous regions of Asturias and Cantabria.

Originally slated for completion in 2024, the much-needed update is now likely to be delayed until at least 2026.

It has also emerged that the manufacturer, Basque-based CAF, flagged the error back in March 2021.

President Miguel Ángel Revilla has called it “an unspeakable botch” adding that “heads must roll", according to Spanish regional newspaper El Diario Montañés.

Who is to blame for ordering the wrong size trains?

Various parties played a part in the debacle, including Spain’s national rail operator Renfe, rail infrastructure manager Adif, transport manufacturer CAF and the State Agency for Railway Safety (AESF).

After granting the manufacturing contract to CAF, Renfe says it provided measurements based on infrastructure specifications provided by Adif. CAF later warned that the specifications may not be correct.

Built in the 19th century, the region’s rail network crosses a mountainous landscape. It has varying tunnel sizes that do not adhere to standardised modern dimensions.

So far, two senior officials have been dismissed - a Renfe rolling stock manager and Adif’s head of inspection and track technology.

Spain’s transport minister Raquel Sanchez says she was only recently made aware of the problem. She has launched an internal audit into who knew about the issue and why it wasn’t raised earlier.

Spain’s Secretary General for Infrastructure, Xavier Flores, has admitted that he was made aware of the issue months ago.

What will happen to the oversized trains?

As the trains were still in the design phase, they have not been manufactured yet.

While this minimises the cost of the error, the time-consuming process will need to be repeated, delaying the trains’ construction.

They will now be manufactured using the dimensions of a train that already runs on the network for comparison to ensure they fit through the various tunnels. Adif will also update its infrastructure data accordingly to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

France made a similar error in 2014

This is not the first time such a fiasco has taken place. In 2014, French train operator SNCF (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) ordered 2,000 regional trains that were too wide for the network’s platforms.

Again, the error was caused by data from the infrastructure manager that did not account for older structures.

In this case, the trains were already made and the platforms had to be rebuilt at great cost.
Logged
Ralph Ayres
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 336


View Profile
« Reply #1 on: February 11, 2023, 21:06:06 »

New London Underground trains often resulted in at least minor tweaks to platform edges or track positioning. They tended to be sized to "push the envelope" with the expectation of some adjustment being made (and probably some idea of where that might be) once a real train could be tried carefully for size, rather than err on the side of caution and not make the most of the limited space available in the tunnels. Fancy software now makes it easier to find the tight spots in advance.
There may be a little of that approach in this one, though it may of course equally be sheer incompetence.
Logged
Do you have something you would like to add to this thread, or would you like to raise a new question at the Coffee Shop? Please [register] (it is free) if you have not done so before, or login (at the top of this page) if you already have an account - we would love to read what you have to say!

You can find out more about how this forum works [here] - that will link you to a copy of the forum agreement that you can read before you join, and tell you very much more about how we operate. We are an independent forum, provided and run by customers of Great Western Railway, for customers of Great Western Railway and we welcome railway professionals as members too, in either a personal or official capacity. Views expressed in posts are not necessarily the views of the operators of the forum.

As well as posting messages onto existing threads, and starting new subjects, members can communicate with each other through personal messages if they wish. And once members have made a certain number of posts, they will automatically be admitted to the "frequent posters club", where subjects not-for-public-domain are discussed; anything from the occasional rant to meetups we may be having ...

 
Pages: [1]
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.2 | SMF © 2006-2007, Simple Machines LLC Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
This forum is provided by customers of Great Western Railway (formerly First Great Western), and the views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that the content provided by one of our posters contravenes our posting rules (email link to report). Forum hosted by Well House Consultants

Jump to top of pageJump to Forum Home Page