MADRID/BARCELONA, Nov 10 (Reuters) – Spanish train drivers went on strike on Tuesday to demand more investment in maintenance and safety following Spain’s second fatal rail crash this year, causing widespread travel disruption.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez last week appointed his deputy, Carlos Cuerpo, to provisionally run the Transport Ministry after Oscar Puente resigned over the two crashes on the same high-speed Madrid-Seville line this year, which killed 115 people.
About 40% of long- and medium-distance services were cancelled on Tuesday, affecting 4,042 passengers, state train operator Renfe said, while 90% of services in the capital Madrid’s commuter network and 50% of Barcelona’s local services were cancelled.
“This is chaos,” said Candida Hiciano, 60, as she tried to catch a train at Madrid’s Atocha station. “Anyway, we’re going to try to get to work come what may.”
In Leganes, near Madrid, commuters had to take buses to reach the city centre. At least five lines on the city’s local commuter train network were not operating, and another three had partial service, according to state operator Cercanias.
In the Catalonia region, operator Rodalies said trains were running late due to non-compliance with requirements for a minimum service. At Masnou station, on the outskirts of Barcelona, just a few people could be seen waiting for the intermittent service.
Train drivers’ union Semaf said its drivers were respecting the minimum service quotas established by the government, adding that delays were caused by poor management of the programmed trains.
EARLIER TALKS OVER SAFETY ABANDONED IN APRIL, UNION SAYS
Talks with the government to improve safety on Spain’s high-speed network, Europe’s most extensive, began after a crash in southern Spain in January that killed 46 people, but were abandoned in April, according to the train drivers’ union.
The second collision last month occurred after a controller ordered a train operated by state-owned Renfe to continue following a signal failure, even though there was a stationary Iryo-operated train further ahead on the same line, according to Puente.
The government approved a series of safety measures on Tuesday, including a clarification of how the time drivers spend operating a train is calculated.
It also created an ombudsman position for victims of public transport accidents and said it would improve channels for railway staff to communicate safety concerns as well as giving staff more autonomy to take decisions such as stopping or not restarting a train if they detect a risk in doing so.
King Felipe VI and his wife Letizia were set to join relatives of the victims of last month’s crash, in which 69 people died, at a funeral in Toledo’s cathedral in central Spain later on Tuesday.
A 16th-century effigy of Christ was set to be moved from the town of Urda near the crash site to Toledo for the service, Toledo’s archdiocese said in an online statement.
(Reporting by Meriem Tourabi, Albert Gea, Guillermo Martinez and Emma Pinedo; Writing by Charlie Devereux; Editing by Andrei Khalip, Jan Harvey and Joe Bavier)
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