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Spanish rail's costly blunder: New trains too large for tunnels
- Scoundreller 4y agoFrance had a similar (but more easily mitigated blunder): Trains too wide for station's platforms, requiring ~1000 platforms to be "re-configured". > The error seems to have happened because the national rail operator RFF gave the wrong dimensions to train company SNCF. > Our correspondent says that they measured platforms built less than 30 years ago, overlooking the fact that many of France's regional platforms were built more than 50 years ago when trains were a little slimmer. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27497727 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27497727 I guess it's no surprise that Le Monde preferred to bring Spain's other example of their submarine blunder instead of their own French one :)
- Drunk_Engineer 4y agoAnother example is the Amtrak Acela. The coaches were built 4" too wide, and as a result the expensive "tilt" feature could not be used along a major section of the route.
- un_montagnard 4y agoFrance stations weren't build as per the spec. That would have had to be corrected at some point anyway.
- orwin 4y agoI'm pretty sure this was heavily covered it when it happened 8 years ago. This was also 5 times less expensive
- nine_k 4y agoIf I were a train-building contractor, I'd send someone with a laser rangefinder to a few of the actual stations to double-check the official figures. And also to every tunnel. Unless these errors are going to be fixed at the expense of the government / railway company. not the manufacturer, of course. (Sad laughter.)
- fredoralive 4y agoIf you build it to the specs and standards provided, I'm not sure how you'd be liable. It's the clients mess up. However I do wonder if the modern ability to do very precise manufacturing means that designs now often just push to the absolute limit of the standards. A few decades ago there would be be a bit of margin left in for error, but now we can hit the limits of the envelope fairly precisely. Which means the infrastructure needs to do the same...
- TuringTest 4y agoIn fact the providers didn't follow the procedure established by contract, which required them to measure the actual size of the ancient tunnels instead of relying on standard measures (which by law were required to be established following modern standards; they knew they would not be valid for the actual project, that's why they asked for an investigation to find out the actual size needed). [1] The delay is not caused by any mistake, despite what the press and politicians said; it's being caused by the established security protocols being followed (for one) to avoid a catastrophe (which has happened in the recent past for not being followed). 1 - https://twitter.com/unodelarenfe/status/1623588179520413696?s=20 https://twitter.com/unodelarenfe/status/1623588179520413696?...
- panick21_ 4y agoGetting all stations to a common standard is the right thing to do, specially if you want to build trains accessible for everybody.
- simplotek 4y ago> France had a similar (but more easily mitigated blunder): Trains too wide for station's platforms, requiring ~1000 platforms to be "re-configured". France's problem was entirely different. They designed a train up to spec, but it turned out that about 10-20% of train stations failed to comply with it.
- tough 4y agoThat's pretty funny, remembers me of some ship or airplane that was also built bigger than the hangar it was being built on, and thus couldn't be extracted once finished
- Scoundreller 4y agoProbably many examples. Maybe you're thinking of Jeff Bezos' yacht that couldn't fit under a decommissioned (but still standing) railway bridge: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/09/1079568745/jeff-bezos-yacht-de-hef-bridge-rotterdam-eggs https://www.npr.org/2022/02/09/1079568745/jeff-bezos-yacht-d... https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-the-thursday-edition-1.6338580/rotterdam-may-dismantle-historic-bridge-for-637m-superyacht-linked-to-jeff-bezos-1.6338584 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-the-thurs...
- cjbgkagh 4y agoI thought that temporary dismantling the bridge was the plan from the beginning, it’s the political push back that was unexpected.
- bryanmgreen 4y agoI always wonder how seriously significant and BASIC errors such as this happen... My experience suggests it's likely because there's too much power at senior levels and lack of ownership at lower ones. Like some senior person says "tunnel needs to be 7 meters wide", everyone vehemently nods in rote agreement, and no one double checks that should actually be 8 meters until some intern discovers the mistake while preparing info for a case study deck. Any thoughts?
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoEager managers (or lead engineers) that circumvent the usual “boring” vetting steps. Sadly, those of us in software, are quite familiar with these types of blunders. Fortunately, software is “soft,” so we can, quite often, code our way out of these messes. Hardware, on the other hand, is “hard,” so it isn’t so easy to extricate ourselves. I worked for hardware companies, for most of my career, and experienced the mind-numbing “measure twice, cut once” methodology that they use. Software folks seldom have patience for that, and, to be fair, the process can introduce deadly rigidity to a software project (which was why I was fighting a constant hopeless battle for flexibility). So I guess another possibility is, is that someone promoted a software architect into a position of influence in the project.
- IIAOPSW 4y agoI'm sure when they were all private railroads, every company had a consistent standard for width of tunnel. Unify all those independently designed systems together, lose some important documentation along the way, and you're left with something where you can't simply look up important technical constraints.
- ahazred8ta 4y agoIn 2013, Spain had to lengthen their new model of S-80 submarines by 10 meters, because a spreadsheet error made them 100 tons overweight.
- TuringTest 4y agoThat may happen, but it's not the case here. The project was written using modern standard sizes, as required by law; but knowing that the tunnels are ancient, they also mandated the provider to make a field study to figure out the real tunnel minimum sizes, and build the trains according to its result. The scandal happened when this caused a delay in the initial estimated dates, and politicians found out that they wouldn't be able to open the train lines in time for this year's elections.
- tpmx 4y ago[flagged]
- narag 4y agoThe travellers and industries in the affected places mind. They've been left behind for a long time and when at last it seems the problem was to be solved, this "funny" thing happens. Nobody resigned. They fired a couple of engineers, one of them they re-hired (with better salary) elsewhere. That is worse in my book. Oh and I will stop talking about other funny things happening around here. It's a nice Saturday evening.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Drunk_Engineer 4y agoClickbait headline -- the error was caught during the design phase. At worst, this will cause a 2-3 year delay in building the trains. The more interesting thing about the story is how several top government officials were fired as a result. That would never happen in the US, where decade-long delays are commonplace for train procurement.
- Tao3300 4y agoAnd that's why I always travel with uBlock.
- remote_phone 4y agoOnly 2-3 years? That’s a disaster what do you mean! People need to be kept on the payroll, etc and the entire schedule will have more consequences. That is a huge expense for something that is literally a few clicks on a keyboard. It’s something that should never have happened.
- BigRedDog1669 4y agoI think they mean that it is bad, but minor compared to what would have happened in the US or some other countries, where train projects are delayed 10 years without design problems.
- fsckboy 4y agowithout even commenting on the idea that govt bureaucracy is somehow worse in the US than in the romance countries, a 2-3 year delay would still be added on, and is very significant. it's not like a 10 year delay is great because it gives time to make everything else come out right.
- simplotek 4y ago> (...) but minor compared to what would have happened in the US or some other countries (...) That's just speculation to try to mitigate a colossal screwup. This is not the first time when Spanish railway companies are caught trying to cover up the consequences of massive incompetence. For instance, the infamous Santiago de Compostela train disaster[1] was attributed to a careless train conductor going over the speed limit to impress a girl, which was a very convenient scapegoat to both ADIF and Renfe, but in truth the root cause as that both companies failed to deploy a mandatory speed monitoring and control system, which has been standard for decades. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela_derailment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela_derailm...
- spyware11 4y ago[flagged]
- jeffbee 4y agoAs an American I can only imagine the luxury of living in a rich nation that would replace a fleet of rail cars only 40 years old.
- IIAOPSW 4y agoWhat are you on about. American cities and states do keep their fleets up to date. Its a bit of a bell curve, but replacement after a median of 40 years is fairly typical. Just the other day in the news. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYBQVB8H1Mw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYBQVB8H1Mw BART also got a bunch of new cars in the past few years.
- jeffbee 4y agoAnd yet the majority of the BART trains in actual service right now are not new. They still have 1968 rolling stock in regular service.
- Kon-Peki 4y agoHey, I saw a brand new BART rail car in Omaha a few weeks ago! It was heading west on interstate 80, on a trailer, being pulled by a semi truck... I couldn’t help but feel like there was something wrong with that situation. A few years ago, I saw a big line of brand new VIA rail locomotives (the Canadian version of Amtrak) heading east in Chicago. But at least they were on CN railroad tracks under their own power…
- IIAOPSW 4y agoThat has to do with FRA rules. In short, mainline passenger railcars are held to a certain standard of crash-worthiness with freight trains. An excessive standard many will say but none the less its a rule. Subways and metro trains, provided they don't share track with the national network, aren't held to that standard. That's why your BART car is shipped on a flatbed and not under its own wheels.
- jeffbee 4y ago
- xchip 4y agoFrance made a similar mistake. Spain problem happened at the design phase, France's problem was realized when 200 trains already built, couldn't fit in the train stations. "French red faces over trains that are 'too wide'" (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27497727 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27497727)
- pubby 4y agoIs it typical for trains to be custom made? For some reason I had imagined them to be made like cars
- fhars 4y agoThey are usually procured in series, but only a few (compared with cars) trains per series are built. For example, there are three configurations for Germanys current top of the line ICE4 high speed train, with 37, 50 and 50 sets built. Trains seat more people than cars, and they don't spend most of their time sitting idle in parking lots, so you need fewer.
- Scoundreller 4y agoThese ones are probably custom made because they’re being built to a 1-meter gauge. There are about 3 popular train gauges in Spain: 1m, Iberian and the high speed trains at least use the European standard so they can travel non-stop. Toronto had to spend a lot more money on its streetcar refresh because they use a gauge nobody else uses, along with tighter turning radii than most other systems. No off-the-shelf possible. https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/ttc-flexity-streetcars-testing-delivery-bombardier.3263/page-423 https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/ttc-flexity-streetcars... Usually manufacturers take their standard designs and modify them, but can run into issues like where things unexpectedly resonate because you tweaked the design subtly.
- pvaldes 4y agoa) First Spanish railways were built more wide by design than french ones. This allows more speed and stability but has the plus to disconnecting the Iberian Peninsula from Europe on purpose [1]. Therefore replacing the old trains is not so simple as just choosing a new model in a maker's catalogue. b) Neither is to fix the railway. The North of Spain has a lot of mountains so to fix the thousands of extant tunnels would be just too expensive. The delay to connect the North with Madrid by fast train can be measured in decades and a main obstacle is snow melting and falling through tiny crevices to flood the tunnels in construction. We have very good engineers but unexpected events just happen. All of this said, none of this facts should be a secret for the maker, and after hearing about the other cases, I wouldn't bet that this is not an old maker's trick to increase the bills. Not without more context. As politician Revilla is an opportunist survivor, so acting outraged is expected [2]. ---------------- [1] Therefore blocking other countries to use their trains to move troops and tanks and invading Spain in a lightning operation. When your neighbor could be Napoleon or Hitler is better to be safe than sorry. This sword cuts both ways and was a problem later in peace times to export our products to Europe. [2] He just will say anything that his current audience wants to hear, as has been doing for decades. He knows probably that acting angry and blaming other will deflect any responsibilities far from himself.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y agoMaybe they used unpatched Xerox Work Centres? C.f. https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/06/xerox_copier_flaw_means_dodgy_numbers_and_dangerous_designs/ https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/06/xerox_copier_flaw_mea...
- soco 4y agoA warm hello from Zurich, Switzerland, where they noticed the fancy new trams are too thick to turn in places only when testing them, so another half a year of rebuilding certain platforms followed.
- rippercushions 4y agoPretty much the same issue happened in Sydney back in 2018: https://news.com.au/technology/innovation/nsws-2-billion-new-trains-are-too-wide-to-get-through-tunnels/news-story/47bd2ee36f43cd3cdd2819078feb6011 https://news.com.au/technology/innovation/nsws-2-billion-new... But they came up with a cheaper solution: revise the safety standards so it's not a problem, and in completely unrelated news, renovate 10 tunnels.
- panick21_ 4y agoIncreasing your loading gauge to a bigger standard has quite a few advantages. If the tunnels were old renovating with bigger standard isn't a bad idea. I mean it would be better to plan this sort of thing form the beginning, but still.
- panick21_ 4y agoSomething I didn't know much about, loading gauge. Everybody know that rails have a gauge that is different in different places. I didn't know much about loading gauge and how big deal it is. Of course its totally logical once you think about it, but I never did. Britain who build so much infrastructure in the Victorian period has tiny tunnels and bridges. So they have a small loading gauge. That has disadvantages, both for operations but also it makes electrification harder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loading_gauge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loading_gauge
- Al-Khwarizmi 4y agoThe issue is much more complex than that. No one really made a blatant blunder. It's mostly an issue of interaction between obsolete infrastructure that doesn't meet modern safety standards, laws enforcing said standards, and bureaucracy. This Twitter thread explains it in detail (sorry, in Spanish, but machine translation should do a good job): https://twitter.com/unodelarenfe/status/1623588179520413696?t=zYhQx7RNihYaq93rwVpbnQ&s=19 https://twitter.com/unodelarenfe/status/1623588179520413696?...
- pvaldes 4y agoA very interesting point in the link. In resume yes, it seems that trains really would physically fit in the tunnels and would enter and exit the tunnels without problems ... what they would not do is respecting the buffer space of security around that is required by current laws. As result if a train stops in some tunnels for an emergency the people may not have enough space for exiting the train safely and quickly (by modern standards).