Woah. 64 people? That’s an insane accident. Wth even happened???
Edit: 68 apparently
The crash involved two high-speed trains operated by Spanish rail companies Renfe and Iryo on the Madrid-Seville line. According to Renfe, the collision near Urda station caused the two rear carriages of the Iryo train to derail. Emergency services were dispatched to the scene.
Footage published by local media showed the wreckage of both trains scattered across the tracks and a nearby embankment as emergency crews worked at the scene. Passengers were seen leaving the area with their luggage in the aftermath of the crash.
Horrific.
And, interestingly, the last paragraph of the article:
Wednesday’s crash comes just nine months after another collision involving two high-speed trains near the southern Spanish town of Adamuz killed 46 people in January, raising serious concerns about rail safety in the country.
Reminds me of airplane crashes where huge numbers of people just all die at once. Awful… truly awful.
Before people freak out and say “Wow, I guess we shouldn’t trust trains”, in Q1 of 2026, 90 days, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported 7770 people died from cars in the US. That’s an average of 86 people a day, every day, from cars. And they considered that a good number, because it was down 4% from other quarters!
So yes, this is a tragedy. But it’s also a rare occurrence that probably killed fewer people than October 28th alone did on the streets of car central.
Traveling is just dangerous. You have to go fast, and physics exists.
That being said, if you want to compare to cars, you also have to account for other ratios that eventually all answer the question “would it be safer or more convenient to replace the vast majority of cars with trains?” which is a fascinating world to imagine.
Driving is easily one of most dangerous things ordinary people do.
This is an article about Spain.
Why are you sharing statistics from the US?
Partly because it’s in English, but also because I think Europeans on average know that a one-off event like this isn’t a pattern, but I think Americans, who have zero high speed trains, are often blind to car deaths and might get spooked by something scary sounding that involves a train they don’t have.
I’m not trying to convince the Spanish of anything, they already have a train.
because train nay sayers love the USA
To prove drivers in the us are more dangerous than in spain.
I really don’t get it. How is it even possible for two trains to collide in 2026, computer error or not? What a tragedy.
According to what I have read in Norwegian media: It was human error. The traffic controller said both should proceed at normal speed. The stationary train in the front told the controller that they were unable to start the train. But this message didn’t end up relayed to the train gunning towards it. The procedure was also that the trains should run at 40 kmh when there was the signal issue that was there. But they were told to use normal speed which is 320 kmh.
Yup, but still, there is one track, two objects moving towards each other. Is there truly no technology that can prevent this situation regardless of human errors?
Yes there was. And it was malfunctioning. Since at least the day before, as some train engineers reported. So they were doing it old style in the meantime.
Signalling, especially in another country, is not my specialty… But stateside (where tech can range from 2026 latest to akin to 1926)… there would have been a trackside signal that the moving train would’ve had to ignore… On top of the dispatch/comms screw up. I, like you, would have assumed there’d be some positive control preventing the trains from being on the same section of track or at least at high speed. Hopefully this will spark safety initiatives to improve signalling and train control.
The system in use in this case was quite antiquated (60s-70s) but even in this old system there are no trackside signals. From each train the system receives information including direction, braking characteristics.
The system then sends the cab the info the driver needs: Current Max speed, Target Speed, and Target Distance (how far until the train must hit Target Speed). So the equivalent of a red signal would be a Target of 0km/h.
This system had broken down for a couple of days, so trains were being manually dispatched. The controller made a mistake and gave one train clearance to continue at line speed despite there being a stopped train in front of it.
It probably boils down to costs, because passengers lives are cheap, sensors are not apparently.
They were supposed to move the same way. There was an issue with the signaling somehow so they had red lights, but the traffic controller overrode it by telling them to go. Had both trains started moving instead of just the back one this wouldn’t have happened.
The problem is the automatic signaling system was malfunctioning. Since at least the day before. So they had the guy working old style. I think that’s the main issue… Not timely maintenance.
I’ll make a guess and say AI. Either by sucking up resources that would otherwise have been used to replace aging hardware or slop in the firmware of whichever system failed. Eh, just a guess though.
Rest In Peace Travellers.
See America, THIS is why we can’t have passenger rail! Now go drive on the highway and don’t think too much.
Now go drive on the highway and don’t
thinkdrink too much.
The best resource for travel is flying aluminum tubes. Get in on of those things. Its safe and very fast.
