Thousands of travelers affected, dozens of trains canceled and an accident train that cannot be removed until next weekend. These are the main consequences of the derailment of a convoy in Madrid this weekend, on which a WhatsApp audio from a member of Adif’s Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) staff now sheds some light. The messages from this worker, in his position during part of the incident, reveal the dynamics of what happened and the possible tragic outcome avoided by the minimum. In the audios, to which ‘ABC’ has had access, the employee points to a “human error” – specifically on the part of the train driver and the technicians – as the origin of the derailment. The Adif professional details how a tow train tried to move a damaged convoy to Chamartín, but it did not have enough power to overcome the slopes of up to 30% inclination of the tunnel that connects the station with Atocha and had to give up. To try to solve it, he asked permission to return to a flat section and try the maneuver again. It was worse. The train they were trying to tow was split in two and the rear part traveled four kilometers without a driver and out of control, from Chamartín to the Botanical Garden. The CTC worker, responsible for coordinating the trains on the morning of the accident, confesses in the audios that he does not know “what the hell” his colleagues have done for the situation to end like this. Related News standard No Óscar Puente, on the train derailment: “It’s not normal that it ends up against the wall” ABC “They said it was going at all hell. Above, there is a 30% slope. That unit [una de las mitades del tren averiado] The entire tunnel has drifted to the Botanical Garden and there was a train with passengers waiting, stopped. “Then, the one that was drifting with the passenger train was going to crash,” emphasizes the Adif worker, who adds that those responsible moved the points on the tracks so that the out-of-control convoy would deviate and not cause a misfortune. mayor.In his messages, the worker points out that the train has derailed through the needles of the Botanical Garden and has passed through there “at 100 or 200 kilometers per hour”, when it is a section that is traveled at 50. It has not been treated, says the Adif professional, of “one screw-up, if not several, by the driver and the mechanics.” Likewise, the employee explains in his story how members of the Adif staff contacted one of the mechanics at that time, very affected by what happened: “I screwed up, I screwed up. “They’re going to fire me.” Hours before these audios were leaked, the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, had ruled out commenting on the cause of the derailment and, when asked by journalists if it was sabotage, he had defended: ” I have never used that word and I want to make this clear.”
#Adif #staff #derailed #train #collide #full #travelers
