Two high-speed trains collide near Toledo, Spain

https://www.euronews.com/video/2026/10/28/spain-first-footage-reveals-wreckage-of-deadly-high-speed-train-crash

64•evilmonkey19•1h ago

Comments

evilmonkey19•1h ago

https://elpais.com/espana/2026-10-28/ultima-hora-del-choque-...

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/28/spain-high-speed-train-crash...

https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2026/10/28/toledo-tr...

https://www.reuters.com/live/spain-train-crash-live-deaths-i...

silverFork•51m ago

How is this even possible in this day and age. It can be all automated, double and quad checked enroute ..

Rapzid•48m ago

It's the second time this year too. In Spain. Same company.

nom•37m ago

apparently even the same line

paxy•45m ago

"In this day and age" means nothing when so many of these train systems are running on technology from the mid-1900s.

FeteCommuniste•42m ago

Spain didn't even have high-speed trains until the early 1990s so I don't think that's the case here.

paxy•25m ago

The network started construction in the late 1980s so that's still 40 years ago. The 90s weren't as recent as we all think..

bluGill•14m ago

Still recent enough to have computers fully able to control everything.

manarth•42m ago

It's been reported that the automated system had failed, so trains were being routed and instructed manually.

dist-epoch•45m ago

> El Mundo is reporting that the Iryo train flagged a failure in its LZB signalling system 10 minutes before the crash, but the train behind did not receive the information due to a potential human error.

> Investigators believe the AVE high-speed train travelling behind crashed into the stationary Iryo service.

> A human error by an [state-owned railway infrastructure company] Adif operator in response to a malfunction in the main signaling system is the likely cause of the accident, government sources said. This safety system is automated, but when it fails, it switches to manual mode. That is why the trains came to a stop when the automatic safety system failed, and service resumed under human control - and that is where the error occurred, according to initial analyses.

https://www.elmundo.es/economia/2026/10/28/6ae1c9a1e9cf4a372...

Bluestein•36m ago

Some further points: - Apparently some of the drivers involved were in training - Infra maintenance is abysmal. Budgets are poor and or misspent - Second time this happens, in 9 months

hylaride•24m ago

I was in Spain a year ago and it felt like the high speed trains weren't running as smoothly as they were when I was last there a decade earlier. At the time I chalked it up to false memories and not to judge based on vibes, but I guess my spidey senses were accurate. It also felt like a contradiction as there was a decent amount of expansion construction that I saw.

Alas, maintenance isn't sexy for governments.

ethfan•37m ago

When LZB drops out, does the fallback to ASFA plus verbal authorization actually enforce block separation, or is it basically just driver discipline at 300 km/h?

gpvos•12m ago

When on verbal authorization, controller discipline is probably more important than driver discipline. And I really hope they don't do that at 300 km/h.

swed420•34m ago

Already posted 3 hours ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50271032

billbuild•28m ago

10 deaths at last count. Amazing it's not 100% dead.

gpvos•26m ago

64 already. Those trains are quite long and sturdy. But there will be lots of severely wounded.

anthk•37m ago

In Spain the train network was neglected so car and oil companies could earn tons of money since the 70's.

But Toledo-Madrid it's a special high speed network with thousands of daily users heading Madrid to work, which is just 1h away from Toledo.

Still, I will always be pro-train because they can mass deliver goods at much higher ratio than by truck.

Kurtz79•30m ago

"In Spain the train network was neglected so car and oil companies could earn tons of money since the 70's."

That's patently false, as Spain has the largest High-speed rail network in the world after China and it has seen constant expansion for the last 30 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Spain

hylaride•23m ago

Maintenance and expansion are two different things. Governments of the day tend to favour big announcements for shiny new things, while simultaneously deferring maintenance whenever they can to redirect money to various other priorities.

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