The Government recognizes a problem with the size of the trains in Cantabria and Asturias

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The Government has recognized this Friday a problem with the contract with CAF for the renewal of Renfe’s metric gauge fleet regarding “how the new trains that will run on the Feve lines in Cantabria and Asturias should be sized”.

The General Secretary for Infrastructures, Xavier Flores, has explained to the media that the Feve line is “very special”, with “smaller than usual” tunnelswhich conditioned the size of the trains, whose manufacture was awarded by Renfe to CAF in 2020, after a bidding process started a year earlier.

“If we followed the existing regulations, as in other lines, we could end up making these new trains, which we modernized by tender, cause them to be smaller or not with the same conditions as the ones we currently have,” he specified.

For this reason, Renfe has been analyzing all this time what is the best solution to be able to have the best trains as soon as possible, because “We cannot run the risk that, later, after having built them, the fact that they were not of the quality that citizens deserve would be irreparable”has qualified

A delay in renewal

The manufacture by CAF of the new metric gauge fleet for Renfe will suffer a delay of between two and three yearsdue to an error in the gauges of the infrastructure in the statement on the Adif network, based on which the trains were going to be built.

When it was detected that, with the measures published in the network statement, the trains would not fit in certain sections of the infrastructure, the entire start-up manufacturing process was halted and the search for the best possible solution began, according to a report from Adif, Renfe and the State Agency for Railway Safety (AESF).

After various meetings and internal communications between Renfe and Adif, in which CAF and AESF participated, Three possible solution alternatives were proposed, One of them being the adaptation of the infrastructure at the points where there are interferences, which, however, could lead to long execution times and high costs.

It was also valued to apply an exception to the Gauge Railway Instruction at points with interferenceauthorized by the AESF or issue a new specific one for the metric gauge network, although, finally, it has been decided to the so-called โ€œcomparative methodโ€, Although it is described in the European standard, it is not regulated in the Spanish one.

In these moments, Renfe He is already working with the manufacturer in this method, which consists of using as a base a train that currently runs on metric gauge lines as a reference, so that this new rolling stock can be available as soon as possible, he added.

However, “it is true that it is not the ideal scenario that we would have liked -he acknowledged-, but it does allow us to the trains that will circulate on the network will be new, modern, with the maximum benefits that we can adjust and will improve the quality of life of citizens”.

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Flores stressed that the Government has “a firm commitment” to the renewal of rolling stock for the Feve lines in both Cantabria and Asturias.

“It is a commitment of 161 million euros to tender a contract”which has to completely renew the fleet in Cantabria and supply ten new trains to that of Asturias, has stressed.

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