Unions, train drivers, and railway experts have called for caution before drawing conclusions about Wednesday's train accident in Urda (Toledo), which involved two trains and has left at least 69 dead and dozens injured, and have insisted that before assigning blame, it is necessary to know what the controller saw on the screens when he gave the AVE the order to go at "normal speed."
According to Vicente Almenar, a Renfe train driver in UGT, one must act with great prudence, because it is not known what the controller was seeing on the screen of Adif's control center in Atocha, and he warned that there is strong work pressure, as trains are arriving late and efforts are being made to speed up circulation so that they reach their destination on time.
Criticism of audio leaks and the pointing to the human factor
In statements to the media, Vicente Almenar emphasized the work pressure and occupational fatigue suffered by professionals, a situation that, he recalled, they have been denouncing for years, and rejected the leaking of what he considers biased recordings between the control center and the drivers of the collided trains.
For its part, the Federal Railway Sector Union of the CGT (SFF-CGT) has rejected publicly pointing to the human factor without first clarifying what happened in the accident, and has demanded an analysis of work organization, training, staffing, and the conditions under which circulation is managed.
For this union, strengthening security requires acting on the entire system: staffing, training, maintenance, resources, work organization, and coordination among all people and companies involved daily in the railway.
Regulation and control centers, under scrutiny
In the specific case of circulation personnel, the SFF-CGT has stressed that the Regulation and Control Centers are positions of enormous responsibility, where decisions are made in real time and can coincide, simultaneously, with circulations, infrastructure works, breakdowns, incidents, and degraded situations.
For this reason, the union has described the public dissemination of audio from control center personnel as serious while actions to clarify what happened continue, and has stressed that Adif must protect its personnel and ensure that those who perform safety-related functions can do so knowing that, in the event of an accident, their actions will not be partially exposed to public opinion before conclusions are known.
CCOO has also defended the staff and agreed that the responsibility does not lie with any worker, while reiterating that railway safety cannot depend exclusively on the individual actions of professionals, which is why it has urged the implementation of safety systems and protection mechanisms capable of preventing, detecting, and correcting possible errors.
Review procedures, training, and working conditions
Antonio Tobal, head of safety for UGT at Adif, regretted that everything is focused on human error and indicated that people are part of this system with the help and interaction of machines, but that control center operators are the last safety barrier.
In that vein, he argued that it is necessary to review the conditions under which the decision was made, as well as certain training procedures, organizational factors, and personnel training for this type of situation, in order to provide them with greater ability to respond more safely.
Industrial engineer César Franco insisted, for his part, that it is necessary to know what signals were received at the control center, whether both trains appeared in the section or if it was not known that they were overlapping, and added that, when a person fails, the procedure must prevent this outcome. For this reason, he also requested a review of systems and procedures.
Semaf calls a strike for November 10 and 12
In this context, the Semaf Train Drivers' Union has called a new strike for Renfe group train drivers for November 10 and 12, with the aim of denouncing what it considers a breach of commitments made.
The train drivers have requested real and binding protocols for meteorological alerts, clear regulations that coordinate communications in risk situations, and that interruptions in driving times be correctly applied.
In addition, they demand definitive technical solutions to the safety and reliability problems affecting rolling stock, that the reducing coefficients for retirement age be unblocked, and that the protocol for assisting professionals involved in a run-over incident not be cut or have its criteria changed.