YHK - yet another hacker news clone

So far it seems that at 8:30 a computer system called LZB was shutdown to some infra issues. Immediately the trains stopped in that line. At 8:36, someone said it was okay to let the trains continue over that rail at full speed as it was "all clear". At 8:53 there was the collision. So far 68 deaths.

It's the second time this year too. In Spain. Same company.

"In this day and age" means nothing when so many of these train systems are running on technology from the mid-1900s.

It's been reported that the automated system had failed, so trains were being routed and instructed manually.

In Spain the train network was neglected so car and oil companies could earn tons of money since the 70's.

But Toledo-Madrid it's a special high speed network with thousands of daily users heading Madrid to work, which is just 1h away from Toledo.

Still, I will always be pro-train because they can mass deliver goods at much higher ratio than by truck.

This was my immediate thought -- this is such a tragic unforced error. It seems impossible for this to happen.

This route is the last of the Spanish high speed lines that still has an older train protection system. There has been a similar accident in 2002 in Germany where LZB was also used: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linienf%C3%B6rmige_Zugbeeinflu... . Now after 24 years you might think they had mitigating procedures in place...

As long as vision zero is considered more of a gross infringement on personal freedums than a laudable goal, making trains as safe as they are uniquely fit to become is not exactly a great way to allocate funds to maximize impact. Trains are already very safe. Even where they currently lack 4 layers of fail-safe systems operated at a level where that still permits reliable&punctual service. The same money on making them shine could be spent on improving car infrastructure (or even removing some car infrastructure!) for greater expected harm reduction.

Some further points: - Apparently some of the drivers involved were in training - Infra maintenance is abysmal. Budgets are poor and or misspent - Second time this happens, in 9 months

PS. They knew or should have known that the AVE (Alta Velocidad Española) train was ordered (manually) to continue forward, when it should not have. There was at least one known train blocking the track. The LZB system had failed - as reported by drivers systemwide. The Control Center at Atocha station decided for trains to move forward. According to the Transportation Minister this is inexplicable - even further, trains did not follow protocols beyond this: They are supposed to engage in "marcha a la vista" (very very slow, cautious, line-of-sight only traversal to the nearest destination) when in any doubt. This was not ordered, but "normal" further travel.-

Witnesses report, riders that use that same line every day, that trains were also frequently stopped yesterday - reasons unknown. But there were warning signs.-

64 Km. were affected by a "computer failure" at 08:30 local. 08:36, the "decision" was taken from Atocha to continue operations. 25 Km. later, the crash takes place.-

550 souls involved. 68 fatalties. 90 wounded, 50 severe.-

A catastrophe is, to use a tired analogy, the tip of the iceberg. The larger truth is that the Spanish rail system, along with most if not all European rail systems, is collapsing due to excess demand and underinvestment. Any random train ride in Europe at any time in the past few years has been an exercise in patience. Delays, cancellations, and other incidents are constant. A tragedy like this happens on top of a big pile of decay

When on verbal authorization, controller discipline is probably more important than driver discipline. And I really hope they don't do that at 300 km/h.

64 already. Those trains are quite long and sturdy. But there will be lots of severely wounded.

Incompetence on whose part?

The only way to achieve higher levels of competence is to enforce higher levels of accountability. Over the last couple of years Spain has suffered major infrastructural catastrophes without any leadership being held accountable at all. It’s not unreasonable to consider jail time or even capital punishment for such gross negligence.

Could it be cultural? I remember after the Asiana Airlines crash, the experts were saying part of the problem was due to culture.

Ayn Rand gets a lot of hate from the philosophy world, and Atlas Shrugged is definitely not a good novel by any means, but you have to give her credit for basically predicting where we are now from way back in the 50's.

How do you even speak to the ineffable idea of 'incompetence'? How do you remediate it? More draconian, individualized worker surveillance?

This feeds into the idea that the problem with safety these days are lazy workers, not the fact that companies are increasingly extending work hours beyond what's reasonable, firing keystone employees and shoveling more work onto the remaining individuals, and operating with a general disregard of regulatory safety guidelines around training and rest.

The reality is very different: https://www.railway.supply/renfe-rejects-drivers-union-claim...

> On rolling stock, the union wants lasting technical fixes for reliability. It further calls for correct application of breaks in driving time under article 36 of Royal Decree 929/2020 and an end to the block on early-retirement reduction coefficients under Royal Decree 2621/1986. Two further demands concern a May 7 agreement on hiring new entrants as trainee drivers and a 1990 agreement on support for drivers involved in incidents where a person is hit by a train.

>On new drivers, Renfe called the claim that recruits are being kept on training scholarships false. It said none of the 402 drivers who have joined are on a scholarship.

Autonation is the only true way out of incompetence.

Eventually everyone will come around e/acc.

no clear cause has yet been named. it can be many things and ultimately they will always blame human error because it gives away the least information about what really happened.

malfuncitoning equipment. humans, geopolitical agendas against europe... there can be a lot of things going on here.

dont jump to conclusions and be skeptical of what people shout.

Once upon a time I did root cause analysis professionally, and a trainer told us if you attributed the root cause to people without finding malice you were just being lazy. At the very least I doubt anyone to blame here was actually involved in the accident, but someone who decided it was not in the budget to put an automated system in place faster.

I feel that mixing up best picture Oscars was a watershed moment...It sort of spoke to me that the whole world is going to shit....

i personally think that incompetence is actually the norm. that such things like trains even exist, imo is very much due to extraordinary people being incentivized to do extraordinary things. trains are extraordinary to me. this is not to diminish your sentiment in any way.

in fact, i think your sentiment is fundamentally the same that drives extraordinary people to do extraordinary things! it's a deep dissatisfaction with the way things are, and when it's coupled with resources, support, etc., that's when impressive things happen!

this also means that i don't think it helps much to shame people broadly or politicize the matter.

As someone from the US I have repeatedly heard that Spain's economy is doing reasonably well. And I just looked it up, unemployment is approximately the lowest it has been in two decades. Considering the post 2009 era of economic turmoil that Spain went through, that economic momentum seems like a real positive.

In June Goldman Sachs put out an article noting how well Spain's economy is doing, which included this employment comparison (showing Spain's outperformance versus its peers):

https://imgur.com/QqB74I6

Spain's unemployment rate has converged with Finland's, a remarkable improvement:

https://imgur.com/1cp6mL4

The jobs being created are tending more toward high value, high productivity jobs that pay better than average. That's no doubt helping diversify Spain's economy further away from tourism, which should provide greater long-term economic strength and stability. Overall it might be a really good decade coming up for the people of Spain.

Doing anything is a risk. The salient thing is relative risk. Even with record levels of train accidents it’s still the safest way to travel.

The bodycount sits around 100 this year for trains and 1775 last year for cars.

Even correcting for distance travelled it’s still way more safe.

its still probably the safest form of transport.

> I can't remember the last time I read good news related to my country.

I hear comments like this from people from many countries.

Ah but the good news thing is actually nothing to do with Spain and everything to do with news in this era. It’s a problem everywhere that news is like 95% bad, and not because the world is getting any worse either.

There were 222 pedestrian urban-area deaths in Spain in 2025.

There is a risk of just being outside. Usually due to cars.

save these jokes to reddit.

60+ people died and you're making laughs over it. Distasteful and totally crass.

This is no joke in Spain. Literally, it caused unbelievable harm to hundreds of families...

how is GPS going to differentiate between two trains on a collision course vs. two trains on separate, but neighbouring tracks?

Insane take. This has like 10x the number of failure modes than a proper signalling system with verifiable software design.

How did we not think of this earlier?!

This is exactly the thought I always have.

It seems impossible to imagine that there are any layers of defense in depth involved here… Because it should be so easy to avoid.