El CEO de Iryo denunció en el Senado hace tres semanas que el sistema LZB fallaba y dejaba "parados" a sus trenes

The chief executive officer of Spanish high-speed rail operator Iryo testified before the Senate three weeks ago that frequent failures in the legacy LZB signaling system were the primary operational issue on the Madrid-Seville line, stating that such malfunctions left trains stranded for extended periods. This testimony was delivered during a parliamentary inquiry into railway safety just days before a catastrophic collision in Toledo province killed 69 people. Fabrizio Favara, who leads Iryo’s operations in Spain, identified the aging signaling infrastructure as the most common complaint filed with the national infrastructure manager, Adif. He warned that whenever the train’s signal lost connection with the ground equipment, the vehicle would automatically halt and could not resume movement until the system reconnected, a process he described as taking considerable time. The incident occurred on Wednesday at the station of Urda in Toledo. An Iryo train came to a complete stop on the track due to a failure in the LZB system. The driver communicated with the Adif traffic control center located in Atocha, Madrid, reporting that the system did not allow her to restart the service. According to leaked audio recordings from the night of the accident, the driver explicitly stated she was immobilized and unable to reconnect with the signaling network despite requests from the control center to proceed. Approximately ten minutes after these communications began, a high-speed AVE train traveling on the same track collided with the rear of the stationary Iryo convoy. The crash resulted in 69 fatalities and more than 200 injuries. Favara made his remarks on October 5 during a hearing of the Senate commission investigating previous railway accidents, including the disaster in Adamuz earlier this year which claimed 46 lives. Responding to questions from Vox senator Alonso Cornel regarding infrastructure incidents reported by drivers on the Madrid-Andalusia corridor, Favara noted that while the LZB system is safe, it is quite old. He explained that the standard procedure requires the driver to notify the Adif Traffic Regulation Center when there is evidence of issues affecting the train's operation, whether related to the rolling stock or the track. His testimony highlighted that these specific signaling dropouts were the most frequent problem communicated to authorities, independent of extraordinary events like fires. The timing of the tragedy has intensified scrutiny over the maintenance and modernization of Spain’s first high-speed rail line. Operators have indicated that faults in the LZB system, which acts as a basic safety layer communicating between trains and tracks, are commonplace on the Madrid-Seville route. The union representing locomotive engineers, Semaf, had previously warned against normalizing operations in degraded modes caused by infrastructure failures. Following the Urda crash, the union called for strikes to demand urgent structural improvements in railway safety and the immediate implementation of new security systems. Documents reviewed by media outlets reveal that the replacement of the old LZB technology with the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) has faced significant delays. Adif prepared a project in 2020 to migrate the signaling system on the Madrid-Seville line. In a public tender worth 131 million euros, France-based Thales won the contract in 2021 by offering to execute the work for 94 million euros, a reduction of 37 million euros. The contract was formalized on October 13, 2021, with a deadline set for February 2026 to have the ERTMS fully operational or at least in testing phases. However, trains will not be equipped with the new system until at least 2027. Despite the delay exceeding one year, Adif chose to continue with the existing contract rather than imposing penalties or canceling the agreement. Officials cited economic advantages and practical considerations for this decision. Thales, being the original manufacturer of the legacy LZB central units and the older ESTW L90 interlockings on the line, possessed the technical capacity to integrate components at a lower cost. Specific savings included using a direct serial interface between the LZB system and new interlockings, achieving economies of scale in manufacturing ERTMS equipment, and reprogramming only three LZB central units instead of the originally planned ten. These factors led Adif to grant Thales a contractual extension in June, providing greater legal certainty to the contractor despite the acknowledged risks associated with keeping the outdated system in active service. The President of the Government has admitted that railway safety is currently under question following the Urda disaster. The focus has shifted toward both the signaling systems and the traffic regulation centers. The discrepancy between the promised delivery dates for the modernized infrastructure and the actual operational status of the line has become a central point of contention. While the government aims to replace the ancient infrastructure with modern technologies, critics argue that the delay in executing this transition contributed to the conditions that allowed the fatal collision to occur. The industry representatives continue to press for the urgent substitution of the old LZB hardware, citing the recurring nature of the failures that immobilize trains on live tracks.