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What we know so far:
1. The last 3 cars from the Iryo train (Frecciarossa 1000) derailed for unknown reasons. It's a straight line, so this is extremely rare.
2. The Renfe train (Alvia) didn't have time to break and hit the derailed trains from Iryo, the two first cars derail as a consequence of the impact.
3. The Iryo train(Frecciarossa 1000), that caused the accident, was manufactured in 2022 and it passed a technical inspection just 4 days ago.
4. The renovation of this specific part of the infrastructure finished on May 2025, so it's practically new.
Spanish high speed trains are one of the best in the world and it had plenty investment from governments of different sign over the years. This has nothing to do with the regional network (Cercanias) and the local struggles in certain regions.
IMHO, this is a horribly timed accidental technical issue.
https://english.elpais.com/spain/2026-01-19/at-least-39-dead...
> 3. The Iryo train(Frecciarossa 1000), that caused the accident, was manufactured in 2022 and it passed a technical inspection just 4 days ago.
The inspection is a risk factor. There is data from the aviation industry for example that engine incidents on an engine that is certified for some thousands of hours of operation between inspection happen disproportionally in the first 100 hours (and then again at the end of the inspection interval). The inspection itself is an intervention that causes incidents.
You left out that the machinists warned about the bad state of the railway tracks and asked for reducing the train speed[1].
There is underfunding in all the railway network.
[1]: https://www.eldebate.com/economia/20250809/maquinistas-piden...
There are reports from passengers that the train rattled before the accident. So my guess is a broken wheel rim and subsequently the train derailed at the track switch then also damaging the opposite track.
Accident location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Cek9DgChguXJxVpd6 The italian is about 400m north at the technical building with the two antennas.
latest: https://www-elmundo-es.translate.goog/economia/2026/01/19/69...
looks like it's a rail welding failure.
Assuming no foul play, it's going to be a Points Failure, isn't it? Like Potters Bar (2002) where most of the train makes it through, but rattles/breaks some weak point that was just holding on, and the last carriages change tracks. But at 250mph. Shocking stuff.
This is tragic, but I hope it doesn't put a damper on Spanish high-speed train development. They've really done a remarkable job building out their network in a cost-effective manner.
In point number 3, you state that one of the trains caused the accident, whereas the cause of the accident is not yet known and could be for example an issue in the rails themselves.
also the derailed carriages crashed rolled down a hill which complicated things further
The most important context is this image[1] from the Guardia Civil. Using Google Maps, and using as context the tree, post and yellow connection box in the image, we can place its location at 180m before the accident in the tracks of the Iryo train. The image appears to show a track welding failure. This would match the reports of some passengers[2] that reported that the "train started shaking violently" before the accident.
Photo at 38.00771000519087, -4.565435982666953
Accident at 38.009292813090475, -4.564960554581273
[1] https://img2.rtve.es/im/16899875/?w=900
[2] https://x.com/eleanorinthesky/status/2012961856520917401?s=2...
The first image looks like sabotage to me. Continuous welded rail sections are much longer than this gap.
For many years the Spanish state-owned company RENFE had a monopoly on Spain's huge high speed rail network. However their high prices, inconvenient schedules and poor customer service were often criticized, and so when, to the annoyance of RENFE and many spanish politicians, additional foreign operators entered the market on the key Madrid - Barcelona route, ridership doubled whilst ticket prices halved.
So I would standby for this tragedy to be used for political purposes to try and get foreign operators banned from Spanish tracks, regardless of the facts of the matter.
Foreign operators are mandated by the EU, they can't be banned. Spain has been one of the first countries to allow foreign high speed operators (unlike other European countries that did attempt to delay their entrance as much as possible
Unless there is evidence that the accident was caused by the Iryo train, I wouldn’t be so fast to blame the private companies on a decaying infrastructure.
There are plenty of cases of lack of maintenance in the railway network.
> So I would standby for this tragedy to be used for political purposes
This is an ignorant opinion. For multiple reasons.
Derailing under these circumstances is a track issue, which means ADIF, the state's infrastructure maintainer, is under suspicion. Not operators, the state's infrastructure maintainer.
Liberalization of the railway sector is an EU-wide mandate. It's not some whimsical slip of a single country's leadership.
Years ago there was an AVE derailment in Santiago de Compostela. No one banned RENFE from the lines.
If you’re interested in this kind of thing, look up plainly difficult on youtube. He has more videos on train crashes than I’ve seen, and I’m embarrassed how many I’ve seen. Here’s one to get you started: https://youtu.be/VV2rIHEp5AM?si=sSBT9s49PqbLTGbt
There are a lot of safety lessons embedded in these videos, which is why I like them. I also did a double take when I heard "semaphore"; its history goes back far longer than the ~century of software engineering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore
Oh you silly duck! Semafor is a common word in a handful of other languages for things like traffic lights and such. I had to do a double take when I first saw it in a programming class.
Also hope you’re doing well it’s been a minute since our paths crossed on gdnet.
The basics of mutual exclusion algorithms were developed for railway timetabling and track signalling.
No cause is known yet, but based on the videos, what’s the most likely reason for crashes? Bad tracks? Some human error resulting in collision?
In Spanish a traffic light it's called a semaphore too.
The train in question is a Frecciarossa 1000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frecciarossa_1000
The Italians designed it but won't run it at more than 300km/h in Italy citing local infrastructure concerns. I guess that leaves other countries to find the edge cases. I'll be interested to find out how fast it was going during the crash.
AnsaldoBreda did also manufacture the Fyra trains for the short-lived high-speed trains here in The Netherlands. After three trains lost parts in the first month, it was banned from operations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyra
Looks like a Frecciarossa 1000 derailed in 2020 but it was due to a manufacturer defect in a track switch replaced the night before.
The defect was not caught by the manufacturer or the system operator. It was due to two crossed wires in an assembly.
I know a lot more engineering goes into these trains due to the higher stakes. Japan’s high speed rail hasn’t had a fatal accident in 60 years. I’m wondering what the cause of this will turn out to be.
Yeah but for this accident both trains were well below 300 km/h at the incident site. Around 210 km/h I think.
Blame game has started. Minister saying the track was renewed in May. Train operator saying the train was inspected 4 days ago.
I'm in Spain currently. Very sad news.
Not to go too off-topic but what was the last word on the internet blackout and also the (unrelated) stolen train cable wire incidents from last year? Were there any satisfying conclusions?
In both you had people saying wait till the thorough investigation finishes, but I don't recall any commotion or bells and whistles around any final reports on those events. Unless I totally missed it of course.
As a reference, ~1500-2000 people die every year due to cars in Spain.
Taking the commuter train to and from Dublin, sometimes another train on the other direction passes and it's a bit unnerving. I cannot imagine such a collision between two high speed trains :(
The investigation is already pointing on the direction of poor maintenance[1].
[1]: https://euroweeklynews.com/2026/01/19/focus-of-guardia-civil...
As an American with no good rails, I've always been curious: what stops a crazy person from throwing a boulder onto the high speed tracks, or a raccoon getting on it, or other such derailment attempts? Is there high security electric fencing all around the track the whole route or something like that?
The derailing happened where an old piece of rail from 1989 was soldered to a new rail[1].
[1]: https://www.elmundo.es/economia/2026/01/24/69751757e85ecebc3...
From the aerial imagery it looks like the accident sequence started at the track switch [1]. The RENFE is rested south of it and the Iryo is north. Quite similar to the 1998 Eschede ICE accident which started with a broken wheel rim and finally derailed at a track switch.
I wonder how anybody knows that it was the Iryo train that caused the accident.
Local chats are saying that this is retaliation by a drug cartel after a 10-ton shipment of drugs was intercepted - this was reported in the news recently. In general, Spain has a long history of railway attacks carried out for mafia-linked, pseudo-political reasons.
All evidence shows that the railway was broken when the Iryo train reached that point.
So, a maintenance issue because of lack of investment.
Always try to sit in seats where your back is toward the direction of motion.
Updated to 39 people now, but probably the number can still go up
After the TV videos, it seems that a chunk of 80cm or one meter of the railway was missing, or broke by the train passing.
Just to add context:
In 2025 August, the Spanish government blocked the attempt from Ganz MaVag Europe to buy Talgo, the main Spanish train maker. Ganz Magyar Vagon is an Hungarian company linked with Oil oligarchs close to the Victor Orban government. The government alleged National Security reasons when the National Intelligence Center started to suspect that the operation was really funded by a Russian Company, lending money to the Hungarians, via Corvinus International Investment Ltd.
https://www.ft.com/content/e3074c51-7de1-4ed4-aafd-e3c20d9be...
So it seems that Moscow could be trying to gain access to the Spanish train technology for some reason.
Also, this crash happened in Andalucia. On 8 January 2026 the high velocity trains in Andalucia were delayed some hours by somebody stealing small amounts of copper cable from several vital parts of the system. It was ruled as common thievery, and it was not the first time. Similar events on may 2025:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm24l14l4zmo
Stealing copper from the Spanish railway is like an Olympic sport lately. It seems strangely common on the previous hours to a big holiday, election or major event.
The problem is causing serious economic damage and lots of troubles to the users of the Spanish Commuter rail system "Cercanias" and now escalated also to the high speed railway. The troubles with Cercanias can be often attributed to poor maintenance, but sometimes include also somebody placing rocks and trunks directly on the railway with the mere purpose to create chaos.
EU is on an hybrid war with Russia, and that there are many documented boycotts against relevant European infrastructure, like the regular cut of submarine cables. At this moment is to soon to discard anything.
Terrible and condolences to anybody affected.
For a bit of context according to the OECD 2023 Spain had ~1800 on the road during the previous year, so that's about 5/day. There are more deaths on the road in Spain in a couple of weeks than this tragic accident. Either way it's too many deaths obviously but I want to highlight what a freak event this is compared to a more popular mode of transportation.
Edit : Motivation behind that clarification https://ourworldindata.org/does-the-news-reflect-what-we-die... read some months ago but that stuck with me.
Yes. The Frecciarossa 1000 (ETR 1000) is an EMU, and the trainset’s coaches/cars are equipped with braking equipment as part of the integrated braking system—so it’s not “only the power cars” doing the braking.
So my first gut instinct is that one wagons breaks malfunctioned and suddenly applied breaking power since it was the last two wagons that went off.
A third train in the Cercanias railway has crashed today and derailed after finding rocks laid in the railway and losing a wheel Axle on a rock.
And of course, as in the last thousand times, it was on a very particular northern part of Spain that has lots and lots of similar sabotages in the last years. No victims this time.
One time is maybe accident, two times in two days... nope. We are obviously under attack. All high speed trains in Spain were ordered to reduce the speed to a half temporarily. If seems that somebody really, really, don't wants the Spanish president going to the Davos Forum.
It looks like 40 cm of track was cut away from the tracks. It looks like sabotage or terrorism.
What is tragic is that the high tech approach here ("super-fast trains") does not put security at the forefront. This should have been the number #1 criterium from the get go, already during the planning stage. The usual reason this is not done is because of cutting down on costs, but just simple things such as: how can it be possible that another train comes by at the same time and crashes? This would not have prevented the one train going off, but you have to wonder how that is even possible design-wise to catch two trains. And even trains going off, should not be possible - this can most assuredly be detected as it happens, so what counter-measures are available to minimize damage and maximize safety?