Alex Trelinski
A QUICK decision by a rail control worker to avoid a disaster was the reason behind a train derailment in Madrid’s Atocha railway station tunnel.
The news was broken by Transport Minister, Oscar Puente, on Tuesday who stated the previous day that ‘he would not speculate’ on what happened until there was evidence and didn’t even rule out sabotage.
The incident happened on Saturday but it took almost three days for the minister to reveal that a traffic manager working for Spain’s rail line authority, Adif, switched tracks used by a runaway train.
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The prompt move stopped it crashing into an Iryo passenger train heading into Chamartin station.
The empty train was being towed to a workshop but got detached, forcing drastic action to get it onto another track.
Around 25,000 people suffered delays and cancellations on Sunday with routes between Madrid and eastern Spain affected.
Oscar Puente admitted that the runaway train ‘could have collided with another train’ in what would undoubtedly have been the most serious rail accident since the Santiago disaster in July 2013, with 80 deaths and 144 people injured.
He said that the empty train ‘went into freefall’, adding a full inquiry is in progress as to why it became ‘unhitched’.
“The truth is that the decision of this worker avoided any risk to people and to other trains that could be in the Atocha area,” concluded Puente.
