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For many years the Spanish state-owned company RENFE had a monopoly on Spain's huge high speed rail network. However their high prices, inconvenient schedules a

by jonp888 9mo ago

For many years the Spanish state-owned company RENFE had a monopoly on Spain's huge high speed rail network. However their high prices, inconvenient schedules and poor customer service were often criticized, and so when, to the annoyance of RENFE and many spanish politicians, additional foreign operators entered the market on the key Madrid - Barcelona route, ridership doubled whilst ticket prices halved. So I would standby for this tragedy to be used for political purposes to try and get foreign operators banned from Spanish tracks, regardless of the facts of the matter.

diegocg 9mo ago
Foreign operators are mandated by the EU, they can't be banned. Spain has been one of the first countries to allow foreign high speed operators (unlike other European countries that did attempt to delay their entrance as much as possible
- arielcostas 9mo ago
  France, for example, has been trying to delay allowing Renfe (Spanish operator) to operate through the country as much as possible, while their public operator SNCF (branded as Ouigo) has been able to operate here since 2021.
  - michieldotv 9mo ago
    This EU free-rider behavior is unfortunately typical of French public sector policy. European energy markets were famously liberalised in 1996, allowing French state-owned EDF to acquire the previously state-owned monopolist Electrabel in Belgium. All the while France negotiated an exemption for not privatising EDF because of its nuclear facilities. EU regulations should prevent this type of free-ridership: state-owned companies shouldn't be able to compete abroad if they don't face competition at home.
  - nyreed 9mo ago
    Interestingly SNCF is expected to subsidise less profitable local services with funds from the profitable high speed routes. Open competition kind of spoils this model. It's not really sustainable.
    - arielcostas 9mo ago
      It's not. Regulation (EC) No 1370/2007[^1] states in the annex, related to compensation in cases where a public operator operates subsidised public services and commercial, for-profit activities, that: >In order to increase transparency and avoid cross-subsidies, where a public service operator not only operates compensated services subject to public transport service obligations, but also engages in other activities, the accounts of the said public services must be separated so as to meet at least the following conditions: [...] Another topic is: should France be allowed to keep the TGV monopoly in their country because they need it to finance the rest of their network, while they are allowed to operate abroad (like in Spain), taking away business from Renfe through the free market competition they try to impede on their country anyway? [^1]: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32007R1370 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32...
- oersted 9mo ago
  I have observed that it is a recurring pattern. I am most aware of the behind the scenes in public education, but I believe it is across the board. Massive efforts are done to implement reforms to conform to EU standards, believing that that’s how the “superior” EU members do it (Germany, NL, Nordics…). But then I go there and I see that their system has nothing to do with the standards and they are not doing much to conform. It’s fine, these reforms are often beneficial for Spain, and I do believe that generally being in the EU is a big win-win. Although sometimes it’s just a lot of unnecessary reshuffling at great cost. A certain segment of the Spanish population really looks up to northern EU countries, or rather they feel a sense of inferiority. In practice there is not all that much to look up to and I believe Spain should be feel more confident. Many great things are prevented by the widespread belief that we are in a shitty country and that everyone is useless, but it is just not true.
  - pestatije 9mo ago
    exactly...39 dead and we should feel more confident, that's how shitty we are
    - wongarsu 9mo ago
      Compared to road deaths that's practically nothing. Obviously 39 dead are 39 too many, and in terms of railway disasters it's a lot, but in the bigger picture it's a blip
    - tpm 9mo ago
      Tragedies like this do happen elsewhere. It's just important to make sure they don't happen twice for the same reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster
  - wongarsu 9mo ago
    It's a common pattern far beyond the EU. One big driving force is that if you have an existing solution that achieves 80% you have much less incentive to change than if your current state only achieves 50%. So the "inferior" country modernizes to the new 100% solution while the "superior" one might stay on the 80% solution for far longer
locknitpicker 9mo ago
> So I would standby for this tragedy to be used for political purposes This is an ignorant opinion. For multiple reasons. Derailing under these circumstances is a track issue, which means ADIF, the state's infrastructure maintainer, is under suspicion. Not operators, the state's infrastructure maintainer. Liberalization of the railway sector is an EU-wide mandate. It's not some whimsical slip of a single country's leadership. Years ago there was an AVE derailment in Santiago de Compostela. No one banned RENFE from the lines.
- elnatro 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - severino 9mo ago
    > The government during that time (of the same party than this one) did nothing. It looks like you're quite interested in pointing out that the culprit of this 2013 accident was the same party which is now in office, but even if we take a look at your sources, it says something different: "Las víctimas creen que hubo cuatro decisiones críticas. Primero, el cambio de proyecto original realizado por Blanco, que suprimió el sistema de seguridad ERTMS en la vía justo antes de Angrois. Segundo, la decisión del ministerio de Ana Pastor de desconectar el sistema embarcado en el Alvia, desactivando una medida técnica que habría ayudado a mitigar el riesgo de un error humano como el que tuvo el maquinista. La tercera decisión fue ignorar un aviso por escrito de un jefe de maquinistas advirtiendo del riesgo en la curva de Angrois. La cuarta, que Adif y Renfe permitieron poner en servicio la línea sin haber realizado el análisis y evaluación de riesgos que exigía la normativa." There we can read that not only the former minister Blanco (socialist) was to blame according to the demonstrators, but also Ana Pastor (conservative) whose party was in charge when the accident happened.
- ThePowerOfFuet 9mo ago
  >Derailing under these circumstances is a track issue, which means ADIF, the state's infrastructure maintainer, is under suspicion. This is the most likely outcome, but it is not as cut-and-dried as you are presenting it. It could be a broken rail weld, it could be track sabotage, it could be a broken wheel or bogie... we don't know yet.
elnatro 9mo ago
Unless there is evidence that the accident was caused by the Iryo train, I wouldn’t be so fast to blame the private companies on a decaying infrastructure. There are plenty of cases of lack of maintenance in the railway network.
- wolvoleo 9mo ago
  But like the OP says this particular infrastructure area was brand new.
  - TacticalCoder 9mo ago
    But brand new doesn't mean the repairs / mainenance were done correctly. It could both be brand "new" and defective. We've seen lots of serious fuck ups in Europe lately: including for a start several cases of maintenance improperly done on big passenger planes that nearly led to hundreds of passengers deaths (several planes have been diverted in the last months and the cause was improper maintenance). I'm not saying improper repairs/maintenance on the rails are the cause: I'm saying it's a fact we've seen improper repairs/maintenance on passenger planes in the recent months.
  - whizzter 9mo ago
    I think much manufacturing adheres to the die-young, die-old principle (Often mentioned in the Backblaze reports), manufacturing defects shows up early on, time of stillness and then as it ages it starts to fail. The tracks were laid in May 2025, that means no winters had passed before now and any defects in the tracks due to temperature differences hadn't had a chance to appear before now.
    - 1718627440 9mo ago
      Railways are neither consumer electronics, nor software. There is a final inspection after construction work, in which the network operator releases the constructor from responsibilities, which should catch any issues. When the network operator later claims, that there was a manufacturing defect, the first question is why didn't it has known earlier, because that is their job.

by jonp888 9mo ago

diegocg 9mo ago

Foreign operators are mandated by the EU, they can't be banned. Spain has been one of the first countries to allow foreign high speed operators (unlike other European countries that did attempt to delay their entrance as much as possible

arielcostas 9mo ago
France, for example, has been trying to delay allowing Renfe (Spanish operator) to operate through the country as much as possible, while their public operator SNCF (branded as Ouigo) has been able to operate here since 2021.
- michieldotv 9mo ago
  This EU free-rider behavior is unfortunately typical of French public sector policy. European energy markets were famously liberalised in 1996, allowing French state-owned EDF to acquire the previously state-owned monopolist Electrabel in Belgium. All the while France negotiated an exemption for not privatising EDF because of its nuclear facilities. EU regulations should prevent this type of free-ridership: state-owned companies shouldn't be able to compete abroad if they don't face competition at home.
- nyreed 9mo ago
  Interestingly SNCF is expected to subsidise less profitable local services with funds from the profitable high speed routes. Open competition kind of spoils this model. It's not really sustainable.
  - arielcostas 9mo ago
    It's not. Regulation (EC) No 1370/2007[^1] states in the annex, related to compensation in cases where a public operator operates subsidised public services and commercial, for-profit activities, that: >In order to increase transparency and avoid cross-subsidies, where a public service operator not only operates compensated services subject to public transport service obligations, but also engages in other activities, the accounts of the said public services must be separated so as to meet at least the following conditions: [...] Another topic is: should France be allowed to keep the TGV monopoly in their country because they need it to finance the rest of their network, while they are allowed to operate abroad (like in Spain), taking away business from Renfe through the free market competition they try to impede on their country anyway? [^1]: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32007R1370 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32...
oersted 9mo ago
I have observed that it is a recurring pattern. I am most aware of the behind the scenes in public education, but I believe it is across the board. Massive efforts are done to implement reforms to conform to EU standards, believing that that’s how the “superior” EU members do it (Germany, NL, Nordics…). But then I go there and I see that their system has nothing to do with the standards and they are not doing much to conform. It’s fine, these reforms are often beneficial for Spain, and I do believe that generally being in the EU is a big win-win. Although sometimes it’s just a lot of unnecessary reshuffling at great cost. A certain segment of the Spanish population really looks up to northern EU countries, or rather they feel a sense of inferiority. In practice there is not all that much to look up to and I believe Spain should be feel more confident. Many great things are prevented by the widespread belief that we are in a shitty country and that everyone is useless, but it is just not true.
- pestatije 9mo ago
  exactly...39 dead and we should feel more confident, that's how shitty we are
  - wongarsu 9mo ago
    Compared to road deaths that's practically nothing. Obviously 39 dead are 39 too many, and in terms of railway disasters it's a lot, but in the bigger picture it's a blip
  - tpm 9mo ago
    Tragedies like this do happen elsewhere. It's just important to make sure they don't happen twice for the same reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster
- wongarsu 9mo ago
  It's a common pattern far beyond the EU. One big driving force is that if you have an existing solution that achieves 80% you have much less incentive to change than if your current state only achieves 50%. So the "inferior" country modernizes to the new 100% solution while the "superior" one might stay on the 80% solution for far longer

locknitpicker 9mo ago

> So I would standby for this tragedy to be used for political purposes This is an ignorant opinion. For multiple reasons. Derailing under these circumstances is a track issue, which means ADIF, the state's infrastructure maintainer, is under suspicion. Not operators, the state's infrastructure maintainer. Liberalization of the railway sector is an EU-wide mandate. It's not some whimsical slip of a single country's leadership. Years ago there was an AVE derailment in Santiago de Compostela. No one banned RENFE from the lines.

elnatro 9mo ago
[flagged]
- severino 9mo ago
  > The government during that time (of the same party than this one) did nothing. It looks like you're quite interested in pointing out that the culprit of this 2013 accident was the same party which is now in office, but even if we take a look at your sources, it says something different: "Las víctimas creen que hubo cuatro decisiones críticas. Primero, el cambio de proyecto original realizado por Blanco, que suprimió el sistema de seguridad ERTMS en la vía justo antes de Angrois. Segundo, la decisión del ministerio de Ana Pastor de desconectar el sistema embarcado en el Alvia, desactivando una medida técnica que habría ayudado a mitigar el riesgo de un error humano como el que tuvo el maquinista. La tercera decisión fue ignorar un aviso por escrito de un jefe de maquinistas advirtiendo del riesgo en la curva de Angrois. La cuarta, que Adif y Renfe permitieron poner en servicio la línea sin haber realizado el análisis y evaluación de riesgos que exigía la normativa." There we can read that not only the former minister Blanco (socialist) was to blame according to the demonstrators, but also Ana Pastor (conservative) whose party was in charge when the accident happened.
ThePowerOfFuet 9mo ago
>Derailing under these circumstances is a track issue, which means ADIF, the state's infrastructure maintainer, is under suspicion. This is the most likely outcome, but it is not as cut-and-dried as you are presenting it. It could be a broken rail weld, it could be track sabotage, it could be a broken wheel or bogie... we don't know yet.

elnatro 9mo ago

Unless there is evidence that the accident was caused by the Iryo train, I wouldn’t be so fast to blame the private companies on a decaying infrastructure. There are plenty of cases of lack of maintenance in the railway network.

wolvoleo 9mo ago
But like the OP says this particular infrastructure area was brand new.
- TacticalCoder 9mo ago
  But brand new doesn't mean the repairs / mainenance were done correctly. It could both be brand "new" and defective. We've seen lots of serious fuck ups in Europe lately: including for a start several cases of maintenance improperly done on big passenger planes that nearly led to hundreds of passengers deaths (several planes have been diverted in the last months and the cause was improper maintenance). I'm not saying improper repairs/maintenance on the rails are the cause: I'm saying it's a fact we've seen improper repairs/maintenance on passenger planes in the recent months.
- whizzter 9mo ago
  I think much manufacturing adheres to the die-young, die-old principle (Often mentioned in the Backblaze reports), manufacturing defects shows up early on, time of stillness and then as it ages it starts to fail. The tracks were laid in May 2025, that means no winters had passed before now and any defects in the tracks due to temperature differences hadn't had a chance to appear before now.
  - 1718627440 9mo ago
    Railways are neither consumer electronics, nor software. There is a final inspection after construction work, in which the network operator releases the constructor from responsibilities, which should catch any issues. When the network operator later claims, that there was a manufacturing defect, the first question is why didn't it has known earlier, because that is their job.