CHAMARTIN TRAIN COLLECTION | So they will remove the derailed train from the tunnel between Chamartín and Atocha

2024-10-25 05:15:00

Him train What derailed last Saturday afternoon in the tunnel connecting the Chamartín and Atocha stations it will be retiring this weekendas confirmed by Renfe, operator of the trains, and Adif, manager of the railway infrastructure in Spain. This is a very complex operation, since you are stuck in a place with little space, where the cranes that normally carry out these interventions cannot enter, and the tunnel is the main passage for high-speed lines throughout the country. In order not to hinder railway traffic, the train will be collected at the last minute or at night, when maintenance services are active.

Unlike freight trains, which are easier to recover, passenger convoys require more maneuvering. Him usual procedure e.g place the vehicle on the tracks with a crane. Indeed, when a similar accident occurred with a freight train in a mountainous area, it was necessary to transfer the crane by helicopter to where the convoy is located. In this case, due to the location, it is impossible. The damaged train is from the 114 series and has 237 tourist class seats distributed in four carriages (wagons), of which three are overturned and one is stationary.

Although Renfe and Adif have not specified the process they will follow to extract the train from the tunnel, industry operators are clear on the steps to follow based on photographs circulating on social networks of the state of the convoy. The first step, explains Joan Carles Salmerón, director of the Transport Studies Center, is to lift the cars, and to do this you need to divide them to individualize them and work with each one separately. Then, “To straighten it, ‘mega cushions’ of around 4 or 5 meters would be needed which are inflated on both sides of the car”. It refers to lifting balloons, hydraulic jacks also called cargo airbags: one would inflate on the overturned side to lift the car and the other would prevent it from falling plumb onto the tracks.

Finally, the train would be placed on a platform and it would transported at low speed towards one of the tunnel exits. The convoy can move to the workshops located at the Atocha station or at the maintenance facilities in Fuencarral. Once the remains have been deposited in the workshops, it will be time to decide whether to send it to landfill or recover the pieces. The Ministry of Transport supports this second option because it is a “fairly modern” car. The first trains of this series arrived in the Renfe fleet in 2011 to operate the High Speed ​​Media Distancia (Avant) service.