Spain Studies Suspending Madrid-Barcelona Rail After Train Crash

Spain is considering suspending the rail service between Madrid and Barcelona following this week’s train crash that left at least 69 people dead, Transport Minister Óscar Puente said.

The Madrid-Barcelona line, which connects the country’s two biggest cities, is due to be renovated next year. Unlike in other countries, where services are often suspended during maintenance, Spain has traditionally kept trains running and carried out upgrades at night or on weekends.

Halting the service would leave passengers without trains between the two cities for one to two years, Puente said.

The high-speed collision near to Toledo on Wednesday was Spain’s deadliest rail crash in more than a decade and the second major collision this year. Deteriorating public infrastructure has plagued the country in recent years and the issue is starting to shape campaigning ahead of a general election on Nov. 29.

Puente said the key factor in deciding whether to keep high-speed trains running on the country’s busiest line will not be safety, but rather the extent to which punctuality and reliability would be compromised by the maintenance work.

The government is rethinking its approach as a result of the broader “lack of confidence in the rail system,” he said.

Puente himself has come under pressure to resign as a result of the accidents this year on his watch. But he is one of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s key allies and is popular with the Socialist Party base for his combative presence on social media.

He said he would only step aside if he believed he wasn’t capable of doing the job or he thought that he’d lost the confidence of the premier.

“I’m going to keep moving forward, trying to fulfill my duty: to face the public, to explain, to clarify and to think about how to improve the system,” he said.

Top photo: Emergency services work at the site of a train crash between two high-speed units between Urda and Los Yebenes in the province of Toledo, Spain, on Oct. 28. Photographer: Javier Soriano/AFP/Getty Images. Bloomberg.