The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, on Tuesday lashed out at the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, after an AVE train fire interrupted the Madrid-Barcelona line during the return operation of the October 12 long weekend. From the grounds of the Campamento operation, the leader of the Popular Party (PP) called him "incompetent" and "Twitter minister" and assured that, when he leaves the Government, "we will not miss him".
"There are still delays and there is still a Twitter minister who dedicates himself to insulting on Twitter. We have normalized that we pay a minister to be on Twitter and not to solve problems," he declared. His reproach of the minister's activity on social media was accompanied by a disqualification of his presence in public life. "I think this type of person is superfluous in politics," he stated.
Almeida also accused Puente of being "incompetent to a degree not previously seen in mobility". He demanded an apology for his statement that the train is experiencing the best moment in its history and mentioned both the Adamuz accident and the Cercanías problems. Regarding the latter service, he maintains that it is the public transport that has recovered the fewest passengers since the pandemic, a comparison he made without providing figures in the collected statements.
The attack comes in the midst of the pre-campaign for the general elections on November 29 and revives language that the mayor already used months ago. On January 27, in the City Council Plenary Session, he accused the PSOE of having put "first a pimp and then a tweeter" in charge of Transport, in an intervention addressed to the municipal socialist spokeswoman, Reyes Maroto. So far, no direct response from Puente to the mayor's words on Tuesday has been located.
The fire, under investigation
The railway incident occurred on Monday, around 4:05 p.m., near Ricla, in Zaragoza. The fire broke out in the tail cabin of an AVE train covering the Madrid-Figueres route. The 283 passengers were evacuated without any injuries reported, according to Renfe. The balance released by the operator estimates the impact on 33 trains and 12,979 travelers, on a return day from the long weekend that left services stopped and departures blocked.
Circulation began to recover on Monday night, after the fire was extinguished and the infrastructure was checked. On Tuesday morning, delays persisted, with circulation on a single track between Ricla and Plasencia de Jalón and a speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour in the affected section. The consequences of the interruption also reached connections with Navarra and La Rioja.
The deputy general director of Renfe, Sergio Bueno, defended that the convoy complied "scrupulously with its revisions in a timely manner". In his statements to the media, he admitted that he did not know the manufacturing date of the train and did not detail its last inspections, although he assured that the company's material is maintained according to the planned procedures.
Renfe has apologized to the affected passengers and has announced an investigation to clarify what happened. In the statement released after the incident, the company explained that it did not know the causes of the fire.
