He Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma) wanted to clarify that the 31 trains still they are not being manufactured, although it is true that there has been a calculation error. It was detected that the trains were too high and that they did not fit for some tunnels in Cantabria or Asturias.
“The problems of the trains” were detected “when the process was still in the most preliminary stages of the design phase, it had not even been developed enough to have a definition ‘on paper'”, they explain. They also report that there has been no no cost for manufacturing of these.
The Mitma has released this statement, in which there is no talk of dismissals, one day after its head, Raquel Sánchez, announced during a visit to the Cantabrian town of Castro Urdiales “imminent dismissals” in Renfe and in Edif to “assume the responsibilities” of the error.
“In the next few hours these dismissals are going to take place and therefore we will give the explanations at that moment,” Raquel Sánchez declared yesterday. The minister commissioned an internal audit at Renfe and Adif to “know and find out in detail what happened.”
According to the Ministry, published “erroneous or misleading information” on the status of the manufacturing process of the trains of the renewal contract of the metric gauge fleet for Cantabria and Asturias. Therefore, this Sunday has clarified that the error in the definition of the dimensioning of the train it was still detected in the design phase, with which no train had yet been manufactured and no public expense has been produced or incurred due to this situation.
Train construction phases
In the statement they explain that the process goes through several phases. The first is that of design, in which the manufacturer defines how the train will be “on paper”. Afterwards, a single train is manufactured “prototype” and the testing phase begins with it. “In these first two phases, it is normal that adjustments have to be made to the design, and even more so in lines such as those of metric width, where there are numerous singularities”, it is indicated .
If the prototype passes the tests, the manufacturing phase of all pending trains.
In the case of the Cantabria and Asturias trains, “the problems were detected when the process was still in the more preliminary stages of the design phaseIt hadn’t even been developed enough.”
From the Ministry they assure that they are working on the application of the ‘comparative method’ in the design of the train and that they will try to “reduce to a minimum the delay in the delivery of trains”.