The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, has offered a press conference on the news of the investigation of the train accident in Urda (Toledo), the second railway tragedy of the year that has so far resulted in 69 deaths, in which he has rejected the possibility of resigning. The appearance took place an hour after the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, admitted at Cecopi that “confidence in the high-speed system is broken” and that it is the job of the Executive to offer solutions. Puente has begun his intervention with a message about the assumption of responsibilities and has denied that he is directing these towards employees of the railway system.
“I am not going to use any worker as a shield,” stated the minister, who has defended acting with “rigor and proportionality” in the investigation. In this context, when asked about his possible resignation, he assured that he shared with Sánchez the concern of facing two accidents of this nature in less than a year, but he added that "leaving would be the easy thing to do", that it is not in his character nor is it what the Executive has asked of him and that his way of being responsible is to "show his face". Puente has insisted on multiple occasions that he would only consider stepping aside if the president considered that he had become an obstacle. “I am a very small person for the political project” of which I am part and now my job is “to correct the errors detected and regain the trust of users in the railway.”
The LZB and the performance of the control center
In his statement, Óscar Puente has presented the fall of the LZB signaling system as a technical incident contemplated in railway protocols and relatively common on the network. Although the causes of the computer failure recorded in Urda and its possible relationship with the accident are still under investigation, the minister has indicated that this type of interruptions in transmission occur frequently - in 2026, 170 episodes have been recorded, according to official data - and remain within the parameters recorded in Europe in recent years.
Puente has stressed that, in the event of this type of incident, railway regulations establish a safety procedure that forces trains to stop and switch to manual traffic management. According to the reconstruction offered by the minister, the control center then assumed manual management and authorized the resumption of the convoy's march. Puente has maintained that this action did not comply with the planned procedure, but has insisted that the investigation must determine what happened and what responsibilities derive from it.
Regarding the series of events that caused the collision, the minister has detailed that the origin was in the authorization to leave the Iryo train, at which time "the green traffic light turned on and the route was designed." However, the unit remained immobilized for several minutes, which caused the AVE that was circulating behind to advance at maximum speed, believing it had “free passage.” As summarized by the minister himself, the seriousness of the situation was that "there was a green traffic light with a train stopped in front that could not leave for several minutes and that prevented the train that was coming behind from being warned of the fact that there was a stopped train."
Puente has insisted that the causes why the Iryo did not continue the march are still being investigated, although he has ruled out attributing responsibilities to the company. In his opinion, the determining issue is that “the train remained stopped and no other convoy should have circulated behind it.” The minister also recalled that the driver does not know what obstacles or trains he may encounter further along the track and that it is the control center that has the information on the occupation of the cantons.
Given the doubts about the LZB system, the minister has dedicated a good part of his appearance to explaining that the replacement of this system with the new European ERTMS standard does not respond to security failures, but to interoperability reasons imposed by community regulations, which require the implementation of this common framework in the trans-European network between 2040 and 2050. Regarding the Madrid-Seville line, the minister explained that the physical installation of the new system was completed in July 2026 —after delayed since April—but that the system is not yet active as it requires prior passage through two complex phases of testing and validation. This update is carried out in parallel with the usual circulation of travelers and with tests at night, responding to the government policy of modernizing the infrastructure without interrupting the daily commercial service.
The debate on works and security
Although renovation works have historically been managed in the same way, the minister has opened the door to a change in the way railway network works are managed, including the possibility of temporarily interrupting circulation on the affected sections. This is an option that “is being evaluated, not only for a safety issue,” explained Puente, who gave as an example the actions planned in the Madrid-Barcelona corridor and more specifically in the Madrid-Calatayud section. To illustrate the debate, he has contrasted the Spanish model with that of Germany, where the railway service is completely suspended every time a work of this nature is carried out.
"In Spain, maintaining circulation while the work is carried out has traditionally been prioritized, mainly at night." A formula that, as the minister has recognized, has consequences on the operation of the network. “Work with trains running impairs the punctuality and reliability of the service and considerably extends execution times.”
If opting for the complete closure of the road, the minister estimates that the times of some actions could be reduced from five years to about 24 months. But it would be a decision that would have a “significant cost for users and could generate social and political rejection by temporarily depriving thousands of travelers of service.” However, he insisted that current circumstances "force us to reconsider the model and assess whether the temporary suspension of traffic during the works can be a more effective alternative."
Puente has categorically denied that the Adif control center in Atocha was unattended at the time of the accident. As specified, there were 16 controllers in the room. Likewise, he has detailed that the operator in charge was not an inexperienced profile, but a 48-year-old professional, with the regulatory training, two years of experience in control centers and assigned to the position since February, although he has recognized that the procedure to follow in the type of incidents like that of Urda is included in the official instructions of Adif and did not correspond to the decision taken by the worker. Likewise, the minister has categorically rejected the linking of labor claims with the accident, stressing that "it will not be accepted that staff conditions that have no relation to the events that occurred are mixed."
