The Renfe provided poor information to the CAF manufacturer for new regional trains in Cantabria and Asturias. The error will be expensive, and has caused evictions at the highest level of the national company.
by Sandrine Morel (Madrid, correspondent)
The intention of the Spanish public rail operator, the Renfe, was good: renovating the Cantabrie and Asturias rail park in the north of the country, forty years old and increasingly subject to damage. But the calculation error that has slipped into its specifications may cost it very dear. The indicated dimensions of trains, in fact, were too large.
To such an extent that if the Basque Caf rail manufacturer had content to follow the indications provided to him by Renfe, in 2020, when he won the tender, the thirty and a metric trains that ‘He would have delivered would not have entered the tunnels … The manufacturer realized it relatively in time, at the time of the design, which will not prevent the delivery from undergoing a delay of two to three years, and the Project, initially encrypted at 258 million euros, to suffer from a certain additional cost, an amount still unknown.
“I hope that heads will fall!”, reacted, Thursday, February 2, the president of the regional government of Cantabrie, Miguel Angel Revilla, without hiding his anger against what he described as “work as a monumental pig “. The Spanish Minister for Transport, Raquel Sanchez, apologized and took her at the foot of the letter. Saturday, February 4, she announced the dismissal of the former manager of the management of Renfe equipment at the time of the auction of the new trains, and of the head of the inspection and technology of the railroad tracks of the Ferré network manager , Adif. To start.
too heavy submarines
Furthermore, an internal audit was requested, at Adif as at Renfe, in order to examine the flaws that led to the error. Finally, Wednesday, February 8, a working group bringing together all the stakeholders in the case was to meet in Wednesday in order to accelerate the rectification process. The thirty -one regional trains were initially delivered during the year 2024. Now, the ministry hopes to best have new plans this summer.
To go as soon as possible, Renfe will put one of his old trains in circulation available to CAF, so that the company has a reference template. The command is, it is true, complex. By applying current safety standards on this old network of narrow tracks, the width of the trains must be seriously reduced in order to keep the distance required with the walls of the tunnels. But, therefore, the bars’ carrying capacity is found much lower than the current level, which can only degrade the service to travelers.
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