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Spain basically does not do the required maintenance: https://www.reuters.com/world/spains-deadly-rail-accidents-prompt-maintenance-investment-debate-2026-01-2

Spain basically does not do the required maintenance: https://www.reuters.com/world/spains-deadly-rail-accidents-prompt-maintenance-investment-debate-2026-01-23/ https://www.reuters.com/world/spains-deadly-rail-accidents-p...

david-gpu 8mo ago
From the linked article: > [The] stretch of track that was renovated last May and inspected on January 7. The track had been inspected very recently. Maybe the inspection standards are inadequate? The linked article also shows figures that are quite meaningless without context. > [The] vast majority [of Spain's high-speed rail budget] went to new infrastructure with only some 16% earmarked for maintenance, renewal and upgrades. That compares with between 34% to 39% spent by France, Germany and Italy, They simply can't compare those numbers as-is. Of course Spain will be spending less in maintenance as a percentage of the total budget if it's still mainly building new tracks. It's not a useful figure.
- anon7000 8mo ago
  Yep, plus their network is pretty new anyways. Which generally needs less maintenance than older infrastructure.
  - pixl97 8mo ago
    Just because something is new, doesn't mean it's full of faults.
- imiric 8mo ago
  > The track had been inspected very recently. Maybe the inspection standards are inadequate? Spanish officials are very good at deflecting blame and playing politics. Nobody wants to be held accountable for a catastrophe. Also see the 2024 floods in Valencia; a partially preventable tragedy, followed by a whole lot of mud slinging, but zero accountability. So while inspection standards might be inadequate, I would take anything a senior official says with a pound of salt.
  - db48x 8mo ago
    But he is correct. If you have a large enough budget for new construction it can make any maintenance expenditure look tiny. The right figures to compare are normalized by length and age of track, not percentages of the total budget.
  - raverbashing 8mo ago
    > 2024 floods in Valencia; a partially preventable tragedy, followed by a whole lot of mud slinging sigh Of course you're right
Findeton 8mo ago
Specifically the fractured track was a soldered joint that joined a track from 1989 with a new one from a few weeks ago.
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  Soldered eh? No wonder then that it broke.
  - exidy 8mo ago
    English is unusual in that we have both Germanic "weld" and Latinate "solder" and they've acquired different meanings. Spanish (and other Romance languages) use the term "solder" (soldado) for both.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
    - duskwuff 8mo ago
      As an aside: Chinese also uses the same term for both (焊接), and the standard English translation is "welding". This can lead to some confusion when Chinese manufacturers start talking about e.g. "surface-mount welding". :)
      - jacquesm 8mo ago
        Heh, that would be a funny misunderstanding to have as well as the opposite, when you get back something soldered when you expected it to be welded.
    - jacquesm 8mo ago
      Interesting. In dutch we use 'solderen' vs 'lassen', in German they use 'schweizen' and 'loten'. English has a third term like that as well called 'brazing', then there is silver solder (a high temperature version of soldering), in dutch we'd call that 'hardsolderen', whereas what the English call brazing we call oxy-acetyleen lassen (which is more of a process name by virtue of naming the ingredients). Soldadura autogeno and Soldadura en el arco (sp?) are what I think the modifiers used in Spanish to indicate brazing and (arc) welding.
rob74 8mo ago
> Spain spent an average of about 1.5 billion euros ($1.76 billion) a year from 2018 to 2022 on its high-speed network, more than any other country. However, the vast majority went to new infrastructure with only some 16% earmarked for maintenance, renewal and upgrades. That compares with between 34% to 39% spent by France, Germany and Italy, whose networks are far less extensive, according to the Commission data. Conflating the maintenance budget with the money invested in new infrastructure in this way is not very useful IMHO. How much inspection/maintenance money was spent per km of (high-speed and overall) railway track would be much more informative...

david-gpu 8mo ago

From the linked article: > [The] stretch of track that was renovated last May and inspected on January 7. The track had been inspected very recently. Maybe the inspection standards are inadequate? The linked article also shows figures that are quite meaningless without context. > [The] vast majority [of Spain's high-speed rail budget] went to new infrastructure with only some 16% earmarked for maintenance, renewal and upgrades. That compares with between 34% to 39% spent by France, Germany and Italy, They simply can't compare those numbers as-is. Of course Spain will be spending less in maintenance as a percentage of the total budget if it's still mainly building new tracks. It's not a useful figure.

anon7000 8mo ago
Yep, plus their network is pretty new anyways. Which generally needs less maintenance than older infrastructure.
- pixl97 8mo ago
  Just because something is new, doesn't mean it's full of faults.
imiric 8mo ago
> The track had been inspected very recently. Maybe the inspection standards are inadequate? Spanish officials are very good at deflecting blame and playing politics. Nobody wants to be held accountable for a catastrophe. Also see the 2024 floods in Valencia; a partially preventable tragedy, followed by a whole lot of mud slinging, but zero accountability. So while inspection standards might be inadequate, I would take anything a senior official says with a pound of salt.
- db48x 8mo ago
  But he is correct. If you have a large enough budget for new construction it can make any maintenance expenditure look tiny. The right figures to compare are normalized by length and age of track, not percentages of the total budget.
- raverbashing 8mo ago
  > 2024 floods in Valencia; a partially preventable tragedy, followed by a whole lot of mud slinging sigh Of course you're right

Findeton 8mo ago

Specifically the fractured track was a soldered joint that joined a track from 1989 with a new one from a few weeks ago.

jacquesm 8mo ago
Soldered eh? No wonder then that it broke.
- exidy 8mo ago
  English is unusual in that we have both Germanic "weld" and Latinate "solder" and they've acquired different meanings. Spanish (and other Romance languages) use the term "solder" (soldado) for both.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - duskwuff 8mo ago
    As an aside: Chinese also uses the same term for both (焊接), and the standard English translation is "welding". This can lead to some confusion when Chinese manufacturers start talking about e.g. "surface-mount welding". :)
    - jacquesm 8mo ago
      Heh, that would be a funny misunderstanding to have as well as the opposite, when you get back something soldered when you expected it to be welded.
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    Interesting. In dutch we use 'solderen' vs 'lassen', in German they use 'schweizen' and 'loten'. English has a third term like that as well called 'brazing', then there is silver solder (a high temperature version of soldering), in dutch we'd call that 'hardsolderen', whereas what the English call brazing we call oxy-acetyleen lassen (which is more of a process name by virtue of naming the ingredients). Soldadura autogeno and Soldadura en el arco (sp?) are what I think the modifiers used in Spanish to indicate brazing and (arc) welding.

rob74 8mo ago

> Spain spent an average of about 1.5 billion euros ($1.76 billion) a year from 2018 to 2022 on its high-speed network, more than any other country. However, the vast majority went to new infrastructure with only some 16% earmarked for maintenance, renewal and upgrades. That compares with between 34% to 39% spent by France, Germany and Italy, whose networks are far less extensive, according to the Commission data. Conflating the maintenance budget with the money invested in new infrastructure in this way is not very useful IMHO. How much inspection/maintenance money was spent per km of (high-speed and overall) railway track would be much more informative...