A bitter failure that will have had the better of their positions. In Spain, a case of trains too big for certain tunnels brought down the boss of the Spanish railways and the number two of the Ministry of Transport, after 15 days of embarrassing controversies for the executive. At the head of the Renfe railway company since June 2018, Isaias Taboas "presented" on Monday February 21 "his resignation", a spokeswoman for the company told Agence France-Presse.
This surprise resignation came in addition to that of the Secretary of State for Transport Isabel Pardo de Vera, also former president of the Spanish rail network manager Adif, confirmed the Ministry of Transport in a short press release.
Transportation Minister Raquel Sanchez "expressed her gratitude" to the two leaders for "the work done in their respective roles," the ministry said. The resignations come after more than two weeks of controversy related to the order of 31 trains destined for the rail network in northern Spain, the size of which proved to be too large for certain tunnels in which they had to pass.
This order, worth 258 million euros, was awarded following a call for tenders in June 2020 to the Spanish manufacturer of railway equipment CAF, competitor of the French Alstom and the German Siemens, according to Renfe. According to the rail operator, it was this company, headquartered in the Basque Country (north), which realized in March 2021 that the dimensions provided during the call for tenders were incorrect. She then alerted the authorities even before starting the construction of the trains.
"There was never any risk that trains of the wrong size would be built because the manufacturer had the obligation, defined in the tender documents", to carry out checks, Renfe assured the company. 'France Media Agency. This error - made public in early February, almost two years after the problem was detected - will nevertheless lead to delays in the delivery of the trains, which should be put into circulation in 2026 and not in 2024, as initially planned, according to the railway group.
According to Spanish media, it could also lead to additional costs due to the rise in material prices in recent months. A problem denied by Renfe. "There is no financial problem, no money was wasted," the group assures.
The case sparked heated controversy in Spain, where the right-wing opposition accused the government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of "culpable concealment" and "opacity", less than a year from the general elections, at the end of 2023 .
"You preside over a government that orders trains that do not pass through tunnels", thus ironically recently in Parliament the number two of the Popular Party (PP, right), Cuca Gamarra, evoking a "fiasco".
This controversy had already led the Ministry of Transport to dismiss, on February 6, the former manager of Renfe equipment management and a senior official of Adif. She also pushed Adif and Renfe to open a joint investigation to determine the circumstances that led to this situation, described as a "gross mistake" by the Minister of Transport.
Reacting on Monday to the resignations of the boss of Renfe and the Secretary of State for Transport, the president of the Cantabria region, Miguel Angel Revilla, of the regionalist party PRC, demanded "compensation" for his territory, directly affected by this wrong order of trains.
"We want the circumstances to be clarified" and "solutions to be put on the table", added Adrian Barbon, socialist president of the Asturias region, also affected, on Monday before a meeting called at the Ministry of Transport.
"I reiterate my apologies, but I also insist that we are working and that we are working to implement the solutions", underlined the Minister of Transport at the end of this meeting. "Sloppy work of this magnitude, I had never seen it in forty years," lambasted the president of the Cantabria region.
