The important thing to note there is that the speed limit was less than half that speed.

Apparently parts of the track were unable to be upgraded to cope with higher speeds.

German news was stating that it was doing 220km/h as it came into the corner, down from the allowed 250 on the straight before the corner.

I hope they find a particularly weighty and solid book to throw at the train driver.

The German News Service is reporting that one of the drivers (52 year old Francisco José Garzón Amo) regularly posted on Facebook boasting about how fast he was driving. According to Spanish papers, he posted a photo to a Facebook group for train enthusiasts, showing the tacho at 200 and saying if he went any faster, he would be disciplined.

He also posted about what fun it would be to race past the police and blow their radar up, that would be a big fine for Renfe.

Always easier to blame the driver than admit that the network was not up to scratch. I think that we need to see all the evidence before convicting him. Many countries have systems that can limit the trains in dangerous areas. That might have been missing or defective.

If I do double the speed limit and run over somebody, they aren't going to prosecute the people who laid the road, or the car company because they didn't put an automatic speed limiter on my car. He was the driver, it was his responsibility. In fact, in a train, it's pretty much his only responsibility to ensure the train is moving at the correct speed.

if it turns out that he was going too fast - we'll have to wait for the 'black box' to be analysed but to be honest the footage looks pretty damning - then it is his responsibility and his responsibility alone.

Yes but the speed limit at that point might be 80kmh but further back it was 200+ so was there enough warning of the reduced speed section. That would not necessarily be the fault of the driver. If it were a sudden transition close to the crash site it would be enough to clear the driver. Though I do agree with you that as it appears right now it could be simply down to the drivers error.

Given every other train that previously had had to pass through that section had apparently managed it, I'd have to say that in all likelihood there was enough warning, yes. We're back to the 'you had one job' argument.


It might absolve him was if the section of track had somehow had it's speed limit dropped from 200KPH to 80KPH (which is a big effing drop, frankly) without it being marked or publicised. There is no sign whatsoever that this was the case, and if it had it would have been documented somewhere.

IMO, there are two possible explanations - catastrophic mechanical failure or he was going too fast. If evidence suggests it's the first, he's off the hook. if evidence suggests the second, he's on the hook for the negligent manslaughter of (what is it now?) 80 people. Which is a whacking great crime.

We have in the UK a Train Protection System (TPS) which would need to over ridden by the driver to exceed the speed limit. If the Spanish train had TPS then it could be a fault of TPS or the driver. Until the evidence is in we have to look at all possibilities before we condemn the drivers. Odds are from other information coming out that it is looking more like driver error.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk.

The driver is apparently under arrest and is refusing to answer police questions. Under the Spanish legal system, the next step is for him to be questioned by the judge leading the investigation into the crash. If he refuses to answer those questions he's automatically committing an offence.

To be fair. As information has come out it is looking more likely that he is completely culpable. He had apparently used this route more than 60 times. So he could claim that he did not realise the speed limit change. Also the speed change point was 4km before the tunnel so again plenty of time to slow down.