Óscar Puente defends Renfe and points out that many incidents are beyond the company's control

The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, stated this Thursday that "whore Renfe" is not always responsible for the delays and stops suffered by trains in Spain, alleging that a large number of operational incidents are due to causes beyond the infrastructure itself or the railway service.

In statements to RNE, the head of Transport has regretted the tendency to systematically hold the public company responsible for any type of setback.

"There is a fire next to the tracks, we have to stop the service, the fucking Renfe. There is an incident of this type, the fucking Renfe. And the fucking Renfe, unfortunately, because in a very large percentage of the number of incidents, many times it is not the slightest to blame," Puente asserted.

The minister has given two recent episodes as an example to illustrate how external conditions directly affect circulation. Firstly, he explained that, yesterday, in Catalonia a "tremendous" storm caused a catenary to fall, which forced the suspension of traffic on the high-speed line between Madrid and Barcelona for hours.

Secondly, he referred to a breakdown recorded in Fuencarral (Madrid), caused by work outside the railway workshop: "In some works that take place next to our workshop and the departure of the trains, at a construction site someone touched a gas line, a large gas leak occurred, the firefighters went and we had to stop. And this happens every day," he argued.

Puente has stressed that the railway system is "very sensitive" and very different from the road network, which means that any alteration in the environment immediately impacts daily operations.

In this sense, he has regretted the media and political overexposure that incidents in Spain suffer compared to other countries or modes of transport.