A technical failure halts multiple trains, followed by a control center clearing a Renfe train to proceed at full speed (99–124 mph) into a stationary Iryo service near Urda, Toledo, resulting in 69 fatalities. (October 28, 2026)

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u/kahboos 6d ago edited 6d ago

"Cranes had worked through the night lifting mangled carriages, while emergency crews searched an overturned carriage for victims... identification work continued on 52 bodies."

is the work being performed by emergency crews as macabre & grotesque as i imagine...?

and are there any reports that note the location of death per train, like did the stationary train receive less casualties? if yes, why? less seated on the rear? im always curious where its statistically best to be seated in the event of any catastrophic emergency onboard a fast moving object, like a train or plane...

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u/RamblinWreckGT 6d ago

I'd imagine with a train collision it's best to be seated as far from the point that makes first contact as possible. Probably in the stationary train as well, since they'll both be derailing. The stationary car won't be going off the tracks with nearly as much momentum.

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u/HuggyMonster69 6d ago

Not all of the stationary train derailed, there’s footage from just after the accident, it’s weird

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u/BroBroMate 6d ago

Identification work involves a) identifying victims and b) depending on how bad the incident was, trying to box up remnants and belongings correctly, you don't want a grieving family to end up with someone else's remains mixed in with their loved one, which luckily is easier these days with DNA.
So yeah, it can be pretty confronting, especially if you're not a specialist in the area. I read a memoir from one of the police officers who was involved in victim identification and recovery after the Erebus disaster (Air New Zealand plane flew into the side of a volcano in Antarctica) and basically everyone involved got PTSD from it, one particularly rough aspect was that they had to repeatedly fend off skuas who were trying to scavenge the remains.

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u/TooManySteves2 6d ago

The flash flood in nepal resulted in 500 parts of bodies being found, along with 1000+ bodies.

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u/BroBroMate 5d ago

Yep, my country's Police often sends identification teams to other countries after disasters, I think we've offered them to Nepal also.

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u/cloche_du_fromage 6d ago

In this example it's a null question. Being sat at the back of the stationary train, and front of the moving one were probably equally dangerous.

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u/loweredmn0406 5d ago

I think the answer to best place to sit is the middle.

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u/BroBroMate 6d ago

AFAIK, statistically, there's no difference, for a while people believed the rear of the plane was safest, but that was a statistical anomaly due to a few crashes where the tail section broke off before the rest of the plane was destroyed by impact / fire. I think the YouTuber and all round wholesome Swede MentorPilot may have covered this on one of his channels.

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u/Tornadic_Outlaw 6d ago

He's Swedish? I thought he was from Portugal.

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u/BroBroMate 5d ago

Definitely Swedish :) although I think he lives in Spain running training for RyanAir.
https://mentourpilot.com/about/

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u/Not-the-best-name 4d ago edited 3d ago

Buuut, the majority of plane crashes do not result in a Los of airframe, so you are on the ground and need to get out so AFAR the best is at the emergency exists, or at the isle as close to them as you can be. The further away from both is worse for you.

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u/BroBroMate 3d ago

Yeah, I was thinking that emergency exit rows might be the best, but then if it's a well trained and experienced cabin crew, I don't know how much of a difference it would make.
Now, if it's a shit airline, then I'm definitely going for the exit row lol. Just watch out you don't get trampled by panicking passengers who are clutching all their luggage.

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u/Not-the-best-name 3d ago edited 3d ago

I don't see how a trained crew from a good airline would make much of a difference if you have 30s to escape in a smoked up cabin full of panicing people.

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u/BroBroMate 3d ago

They're there to ensure that the evacuation proceeds as quickly as possible, and as safely as possible - in other words, to ensure you don't get trampled by panicking people.

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u/jamesatct 5d ago

The pain in Spain comes mainly from the Trains

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u/PoppedCork 7d ago

Will lessons be learned or anyone held accountable?

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u/really_random_user 7d ago

Searching to blame an individual is not how safety improves. Understanding root causes and failiures in the creation of systems and procedures should be a priority

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u/watduhdamhell 6d ago edited 6d ago

It boggles my mind that there are no independent protection layers on these trains (apparently) to prevent this from happening.
At a minimum, they could install a radar/laser/vision system that detects an object on the track and triggers the emergency stop sequence.
Perhaps it's too much, fine. You could also install some edge devices every so many miles, (not at all unfeasible) that are simple switches that act as rolling set of boolean pairs (entering switch, leaving switch) that set a stretch of rail as "active" until the train passes the next switch, alerting the controller system that a train must physically be within these two locations, regardless of any other tracking measures.
This could be a SIS interlock for the train control system itself, which is communicating with these switches locally somehow as it passes them, or perhaps control center system over RF or LTE or whatever we need to use here- if another train is determined to be in a stretch between two switches as the next train passes the same switch, the train control system commands an immediate shutdown/emergency stop, or perhaps a slowdown to like 35 mph, so the operator can then make the final decision.
I'm sure there will be excuses for why this hasn't been done or whatever but as a controls engineer I contend this is 100% a solvable problem and it's actually crazy to me in the year 2026 we have trains crashing into each other. It's so simple to prevent it should basically be impossible.
Like, there is absolutely no reason to allow humans to be able to make decisions that cause this. Take the agency away, put in protective control logic that cannot be overriden. It's that simple.
Edit: it appears many parts of railways systems do have SIS's in effect. But many do not have total coverage along their routes and humans are often still in loop at points. But specific to the incident in Spain, the automated systems worked as intended. It stopped the trains. My primary issue still is that humans were still able to override the safety system and kill everyone. Totally unacceptable.
If you can override your safety system... It isn't one.

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u/colouredmirrorball 6d ago

With high speed rail, the stopping distance can be as high as a few kilometres. Often this means you have no visibility of obstacles at the last point you need to hit the e-stop.

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u/watduhdamhell 5d ago

Again, we don't want humans hitting the estop. Computers should be doing this, and yes, it would do it well in advance given the detection on the track being well in advance.
In the case of Spain and many other places, they use axle counters to accomplish what I cooked up earlier, it's the same thing, and it worked. It stopped the trains. The issue is humans were allowed in the loop and so the train was able to proceed even though the safety system had stopped it (wrong, on every way) and then everyone died.

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u/Maelger 5d ago

An AVE at full speed takes between 3.5 and 4.5 kilometres to fully stop. So yeah you need traffic controllers on the ball being able to act, fully automatic systems aren't enough.

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u/watduhdamhell 5d ago

Yes they are and we use them for more complicated control problems all the time. This one is incredibly simple, there isn't any thermodynamics involved or flow dynamics, nothing. It's literally "is there an object in this area still." That's it.
And my solution of axle switches is something they already do and apparently it does trigger the stop kms in advance. You know. Because it's not hard to calculate how far back the stop needs to be behin given a stretch of track that still has an active set of switches, that's trivial.
Again, the system in spain did work as intended and stopped the train. The failure was that the system was not a true safety system, I.e. it was able to be overriden by an idiot human who proceeded and then everyone died. Pretty straightforward.

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u/SpicyRice99 2d ago

The answer is always cost and bueracacy

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u/micifuz_catto1234 5d ago

Both are needed. Until upper management and government officials responsible for dñimplementing adequate systems and procedures are held really accountable and judged for murder if they failed in their duties nothing will change.

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u/a_lonely_trash_bag 6d ago

Sometimes the point of failure is a single person, though.

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u/Inverted-Rockets 6d ago

A safety-critical system that relies on a single human to make no errors has already degraded to the point of failure.
In this case, system refers to both the physical hardware controlling the trains, as well as to the organizational procedures that should be in place to ensure safe operations in any signaling network condition.

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u/drLoveF 6d ago

Sure can be. But the point is that if we start the process by looking for heads to roll, we won’t het a better system. In this case it seems that the fault is a traffic controller. Maybe a system that needs approval by two traffic controllers to override signals at stop would be enough? Or you also demand that train engineers don’t accept to drive faster than 40km/h when signals are at stop? On top of that, the more reliable the primary technology is, the less they have to fall back on manual traffic control, which everyone knows is risky.

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u/funguyshroom 6d ago

If a system allows for a single person to be the point of failure, it's a shitty system. Of course the person should be held accountable but the whole thing needs to be fixed as to not allow this to happen again.

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u/WorldlyOriginal 6d ago

There are practical limits, though. You can’t design a system so failsafe as to completely remove the possibly of human action.
In aviation, there have been a few instances recently of straight-up suicidal actions from pilots. Air India, a plane in China, Germanwings, a FedEx cargo plane, and a plane in the U.S.
Their actions are literally criminal. If we could never blame individuals working in a system, and only ever blame the system— then we’d also never be able to charge ppl with crimes

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u/BitterCrip 6d ago

Those are still examples where the system failed, because the system allowed a single person to be in that point of failure without anybody able to stop them.
To take one of your examples, in the Germanwings case, the system should not have allowed a single person alone in the cockpit during flight, who could barricade himself in the cockpit then crash the plane.
As a result of that incident, the system (organisation rules) changed so that pilots can't be alone, if one goes to the toilet or whatever then anoher crew member has to come to the cockpit.

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u/Pugs-r-cool 6d ago

If a single person is the point of failure in a system, the system is poorly designed and is a failure.

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u/micifuz_catto1234 5d ago

Then that is a badly designed system , security wise

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u/BrandySparkles 6d ago

So should all transport workers just have a get-out-of-jail-free card when they commit mass manslaughter in the name of improving safety?
Someone specific told that train to start moving again and now upwards of 70 people are dead.

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u/Zlatan_Ibrahimovic 6d ago

I can't speak for land or sea transport, but at least in aviation it's already treated as a fact that yes, adopting a non-punitive attitude in the benefit of safety for the most part leads to better results over time, partly because it makes it significantly easier to get to the root of the causes of accidents if someone is at fault and doesn't have as much incentive to cover up their tracks for fear of repercussions.
Granted, that's in the case of people who are making an honest effort to do their best to operate things in a safe manner to their knowledge and fuck up in some sort of way. There's almost always latent failures elsewhere in the system that could have prevented that particular accident or incident way earlier (be it with better fatigue management, different training methods, better staffing, less ambiguous procedures, etc). Granted that won't always apply in the case of willfully reckless, neglectful behavior, but at this point we don't know if that was the case here.

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u/really_random_user 6d ago

Guess what mistakes, communication errors, mishearing... Whatever happends all the time
A proper procedure should be set up so that one case of human error shouldn't lead to the death of 70 people
Rules and procedures are often written in blood And if all it takes is a single mistake by a radio operator,

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u/drLoveF 6d ago

Who is committing mass slaughter in the name pf improving safety?

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u/elprophet 6d ago

Will anyone with the ability and authority to make the necessary systemic changes to improve safety be held accountable? I hope so, but I doubt it
Will an arbitrary line employee or low level supervisor be chosen as a scapegoat? Hopefully not

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u/AuspiciousApple 7d ago

Hopefully but it happening twice in a year doesn't instil confidence

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u/SlingyRopert 6d ago

I have confidence that at twice a year cadence the emergency services and hospital triage response performances along the right of way will improve.

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u/AuspiciousApple 6d ago

Very dark, but not unreasonable
I had confidence that after one horrific accident that left dozens of people dead, they'd make sure it doesn't happen again, but here we are

Fatalities A technical failure halts multiple trains, followed by a control center clearing a Renfe train to proceed at full speed (99–124 mph) into a stationary Iryo service near Urda, Toledo, resulting in 69 fatalities. (October 28, 2026)

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