An Adif employee was the one who made the decision to derail the train that overturned this weekend in the tunnel. Chamartín-Atocha causing a railway chaos in Madrid to thus avoiding further damagesince it had become loose from the main convoy and was traveling downhill without control.
This is what the Minister of Transport has explained, Oscar Puentein statements to the press at the opening of the International Bus and Coach Fair (FIAA). He has also asked that the ongoing investigation be respected to determine the causes of the aforementioned train detaching from the convoy that was towing it to workshops.
According to his story, last weekend a train was being towed to workshops and “at a certain moment, for reasons that I cannot explain and that will be clarified in the report,” it broke free from the person towing it and began a journey “in a kind of free fall“through the tunnel of the Madrid Chamartín station.
Next, the minister said, a worker at the Adif control center made “the decision to divert it to one of the tracks to cause it to derail and prevent it from ending up on the beach of tracks that enters Atocha and possibly colliding with an oncoming train“.
However, Puente assures that “it is not determined” or at least he “does not know” that there was any train at that time with which could have collidedalthough in his opinion it is “evident” that if the train had continued on its trajectory it could have reached said beach of tracks with the consequent danger of impact.
“The truth is that the decision of that worker avoids any risk for people and for other trains that may be in the area of Atocha”, concluded the head of Transport.
Adif and Renfe also refer to the investigation
The railway infrastructure manager (Adif) and Renfe have also referred to the open investigation and have not wanted to comment on the WhatsApp audios broadcast by various media.
In them, supposedly a worker from the Adif control center in Madrid realize the severity that could have entailed the aforementioned derailmentin line with what Puente reported.
According to these audios, a train that was being towed broke off and drifted at high speed through a tunnel with a slope of 30% towards an area where a train with passengers had stopped, until someone diverted the points to avoid a collision.
Added to this derailment was another incident on Saturday at the Atocha station due to the presence of a person in an unauthorized area, which rail traffic paralyzed for two hours when the emergency protocol was activated and the voltage at the station was completely cut off, which further aggravated the problems.
The tunnel in which the train derailment occurred – a damaged Alstom that was going to the Fuencarral workshops – is the one that connects the stations of Atocha and that of Chamartin7.3 kilometers long.
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