At the end of 1999, with the imminent arrival of the new century and millennium, the world held its breath for days for the call ‘2000 effect’which I assumed was going to paralyze the computer systems of half the world and all types of sectors. In the end nothing happened and it seems that this phenomenon in which the change of year affects computer systems has waited a quarter of a century to demonstrate this January 1st at the Avril train configurationmanufactured by Talgo to travel on high-speed roads Renfe for an incident that could be related to the I go from a leap year to another that is not.
The fault has already been corrected and this Thursday the 28 AVE of this model were able to carry out their service normally, after almost 24 hours of frantic work to solve a fault that, as Talgo confirms, has finally been “related to the change of year.”
This New Year’s Day, 28 trains that were supposed to transport more than 14,000 passengers remained stopped due to a communication problem between the control system and the battery chargers“, as explained by the train manufacturer, Talgo. Its technicians, those from Renfe and the battery manufacturing company, the Basque company Ingeteamthey got to work from the first moment to solve an incident that was reported solved in the early hours of Wednesday to Thursdayaround four in the morning, and by the time Renfe had already put together a special device to relocate the passengers who were going to travel to Avril this Thursday, although in the end it was not necessary.
A joke, no joke
Meanwhile, since midday on January 1, they ran through social networks ironic comments about the “Y2K effect” that, years late and after a ‘annus horribilis‘ on the railway, with delays in summer caused in part by another breakdown of the Avril, now came to attack the trains, the same model with which Renfe operates four AVE and Avlo lines, precisely on a day as special as the first of the year.
But in reality, The joke had a lot to do with reality. The change of year has been behind the computer failure, in a kind of “Y2K effect” with a delay that was referred to this Thursday Adriana Lastrathe Government delegate in Asturias, who apologized to the “many people affected” in the Principality by this breakdown, which also paralyzed AVEs on the Madrid-Asturias line, one of the four affected. “It was a kind of Y2K effect, I’m going to say 2025 in this case. and that no one could expect it,” said the former number two of the PSOE.
“Something always happens,” says the electronic engineer and blog author. Bits&Science, Carlos Carowhich points to the hypothesis that each of the two elements that had to communicate – the control system and the battery chargers – “I thought they were in different years“, based on the fact that one had been configured to discount the extra day of the leap year, which was 2024, and the other had not. This possibility, he points out, has even more weight if, as is the case with the Avril trains, these two elements are manufactured by different companies.
“It may be that one thought it was in 2025 and another, still in 2024,” Caro, who has studied the effect of changing from a leap year to another that is not a leap year, or even just from one year to another, or going from February 29 to March 1, points out as a possibility, and notes that there are always problems of this type, although isolated. “On February 29, the payment system at a gas station in New Zealand did not work,” exemplifies Caro, who adds that what happened this January 1 with the Avril trains “is the same thing that happens other times.” “My suspicion is that [los elementos] who try to communicate [en este caso, el sistema de control y los cargadores de baterías] they don’t talk about the same date and problems occur.
Renfe estimates the cost of the incident at one million
Whatever the cause of the breakdown, Renfe estimates that the incident has meant a cost of one million euros, on a day in which the railway operator had to relocate Avril passengers to other trains, give them alternatives by road when this was not possible and allow travelers with tickets for the affected trains to change or cancel them. free.
“Yesterday all mobility was guaranteed despite not having those 23 trains and today we already have them. Everything is working normally,” said the president of Renfe, Raul Blancoin the presentation of an urgent improvement plan for the Rodalies de Catalunya service in Barcelona, when he also pointed out that Renfe will study how to attribute this to the manufacturer.
“He overall cost of yesterday’s incident was one million of euros for Renfe for canceled, modified or refunded tickets and even mobilization of equipment. We will study within the framework of the such a complex and difficult relationship we have with Talgo if there will be penalties,” he said.
It would not be the first time that Renfe has made a economic claim to Talgo, also by Avril trains. In December 2023, he claimed damages for 116 million for late delivery of these models. In August of last year and at the end of a summer full of incidents in the railway system, also due to delays in the Avril trains, the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility demanded a compensation of another 167 million to the manufacturer.
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