Report Santiago de Compostela disaster
Arial view of the train crash site close to Santiago de Compostela on July 25, 2013

Crash of the high speed miracle

After China, Spain holds the record for the largest quantity of high-speed railway lines. This has been an ambition bordering on an obsession for the governments of both left and right for 20 years. Today, it is the economic model that is in question.

Published on 29 July 2013 at 15:51
Arial view of the train crash site close to Santiago de Compostela on July 25, 2013

Spain can boast two world records in the economic sphere: its youth unemployment rate – currently at 56.4 per cent – and its network of high-speed railway lines, which total some 3,100km. Only China has more extensive high-speed rail infrastructure, although one must bear in mind that China’s landmass is 20 times larger and its population of 1.3 billion is 27 times greater than Spain’s. In kilometres of AVE per inhabitant, though, no country in the world even approaches the Spanish density of track.

Since the first line was inaugurated between Madrid-Seville in April 1992, the decision of the Felipe Gonzalez government to go for high-speed rail has created a powerful industry around itself that has a turnover of nearly €5bn a year and exports 60 per cent of its production. In fact, in 2012, in full recession, the Spanish railway industry ranked second in export growth.

The AVE has become the best ambassador of the much vaunted Marca España. The recent success of the so-called “AVE for pilgrims”, from Medina to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the largest contract ever awarded to a Spanish consortium (€6.7bn), has been the definitive boost to that image of the other Spain that, beyond the crisis, wants to export to the world.

[[Government and business have gone abroad hand in hand to sell this genuinely Spanish technological seal of quality]] with an eye on the international high-speed macro projects that are being drawn up in Brazil, the United States, Turkey and Kazakhstan. The Alvia accident in Santiago de Compostela station, however, may strike a blow to that image, although neither the line nor the train can be considered strictly as high-speed.

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Reputational damage

Perhaps that worry is what has led so many companies to keep so absolutely quiet about the disaster. Not even those affected have said a word to defend their products. Talgo, the manufacturer of the crashed train, and the temporary joint venture of companies (Thales, Dimetronic-Siemens, Cobra and Antalis) that installed the signaling and safety system on the Ourense-Santiago axis, have opted for silence, citing the judicial investigation that is underway.

If the inquiries are extended, the silence can do a great deal of damage when it comes to the awarding of international contracts. The projected Sao Paulo-Rio line alone is a prize of €12bn that can slip out of Spain’s grasp if, as a result of the tragic accident, it gets about that Spanish high-speed rail is unsafe. That nervousness has rattled the authorities, to the point that the President of the Xunta de Galicia, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has already suggested that “economic interests” in other countries, with future public tenders in mind, want to smear the reputation of the safety system.

[[In addition, AVE is not solely an economic issue. It is also a political banner to be waved.]] The two main parties – PP and PSOE – have seized on it as an electoral weapon that outranks education or health issues. Why else would José María Aznar and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero share on their separate agendas only the promise to link up all the provincial capital cities with the high-speed trains? Even in the most recent infrastructure plan (PITVI), from now until 2024, and in the midst of the greatest recession ever, AVE will get €25bn – €6bn more than motorway construction.

Spanish railway product manufacturers billed €4.8bn in 2012, of which €2.8 billion were exports, or an increase of 21 per cent over the previous year. In contrast to other sectors, which have relocated their production to low-wage countries, the railways still have a strong manufacturing presence in Spain, where they employ 18,000 workers.

A byword for high-speed rail

Spain is the country of AVE, the Renfe trademark that has become a byword for all high-speed rail. There are a total of 3,100km in service, as opposed to the conventional network of 11,000 km that reaches 60 per cent of the population.

While AVE trains are extremely fast, the system costs an extreme amount of money too. Since the government of Felipe Gonzalez decided to bet on the Madrid-Seville line, high-speed rail has eaten up €45.120bn in investments. [[That investment comes from taxes and is not recouped from the sale of the ticket]], which, therefore, is highly subsidised.

Other countries, like France, have therefore shelved their plans for high-speed rail. French president François Hollande, after receiving the Duron report, has decided to go after conventional, regional and suburban lines, putting off the planned high-speed projects (including the connection with Iberia) because of their “low social profitability”. The Portuguese government has also definitively cancelled its projected high-speed link with Spain. The executive of Mariano Rajoy, on the contrary, following in the tracks of former premier José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has designed a plan to shut down long- and middle-distance lines that are not profitable (as if the AVE was).

Safety

Operators must ‘set the limits’

"If there is no control over safety measures, high-speed [trains] are doomed," says French news websiteSlate. Yet, Spain clearly does not control these measures, despite the European Rail Traffic Management System, which is designed to control speed through the exchange of data between the ground and the trains.

Safety management cannot be optional. It is a necessity, as it is in the nuclear or aeronautics sectors, says Slate

Considering the very high speeds, the education of train drivers must be close to that of airline pilots and eliminate any margin for personal decisions outside of procedure.

Certainly, "it is possible that it takes longer to develop this safety culture than it takes for the rail industry to increase the speed of its trains," notes Slate. But it is up to the operators alone "to know where to set the limits in relation to their ability to exercise control, on the technology as well as on men".

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