The controversy has been going on for 15 days. In Spain, a case of trains that were too big for certain tunnels brought down the head of Spanish railways, Renfe. Isaias Taboas, who has been at the helm of the railway company since June 2018, “submitted his resignation on Monday,” said a company spokeswoman.
This surprise departure comes in addition to the resignation of Secretary of State for Transport Isabel Pardo de Vera, also former president of the manager of Spain’s rail network Adif, the Ministry of Transport also confirmed in a brief press release. Transport Minister Raquel Sanchez “thanked” these two leaders for “the work done in their respective roles,” the ministry said.
An order worth 258 million euros
The resignations come after more than two weeks of controversy surrounding the order for 31 trains for the rail network in northern Spain, which proved too large for some of the tunnels they had to pass through. This order, worth 258 million euros, went to the Spanish railway supplier CAF after a tender in June 2020.
It was this company, headquartered in the Basque Country, that discovered in March 2021 that the dimensions given in the tender were wrong. She then alerted the authorities even before she started building the trains. “There was never a risk that the wrong size trains would be built because the manufacturer had the obligation defined in the tender documents to carry out checks,” assured Renfe.
delivery delays
But this error, which was made public at the beginning of February, almost two years after the problem became known, will still lead to delays in the delivery of the trains, which are to be put into service in 2026 and not in 2024 as originally planned.
According to the Spanish media, there could also be additional costs due to the increase in material prices in recent months. A problem denied by Renfe: “There is no financial problem, no money has been wasted”, assures the group.
A “guilty cover-up” for the opposition
The case has sparked controversy in Spain, where the right-wing opposition has accused Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government of “culpable concealment” and “opacity” less than a year before general elections scheduled for late 2023. .
On February 6, the Ministry of Transport fired the former head of equipment management at Renfe and a senior official at Adif. The two companies have also launched a joint investigation to determine the circumstances that led to the situation, which the Minister for Transport has described as a “gross error”.