Difficult ballot for General Director of Conservation and Maintenance of Adifthe Valencian Angel Contreras. This Monday he visited the Rodalies de Gava station, the one that a week ago suffered a breakdown that has left the R2 line completely lame. This Engineer of Roads, Canals and Ports has received the ‘president’ Pere Aragones and the Regional Minister, Juli Fernandezto whom he has updated on the resolution tasks of the problem. Very serious, during the walk. Then he has responded to the press, which has been presented with many questions about the incident.
This high position of the public railway manager has maintained as “possible and feasible” the hypothesis of lightning as the main cause of the damage. He has added, however, that the electrical storm could have occurred days agoleaving the catenary Death wound until a cable gave way, came off and touched a signal that carried the overload to the booth where the interlockthe brain of the station.
The fact is that Adif still does not know what happened around nine o’clock at night on Monday, May 1, Labor Day. And it’s not clear when will we leave doubtsWell, if the next day from the Ministry of Transport, Mobility Urban Agenda it was said that this week there would be final report Regarding the causes, Contreras has not wanted to get wet about whether that will finally be the case.
“We are more focused on the resolution,” he has argued, although, in an assumption, and in a health simile, doctors are one thing and scientific researchers another. About the possibility that the Generalitat make its own audithas limited itself to saying that the collaboration between both administrations is total, without specifying if the Government technicians will be able to enter the ‘zero ground’ of Gavà. It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.
“External Elements”
Contreras has pointed out other possible causes. He has explained that, in addition to the delayed lightningit could happen that a train will overload the network when passing for that point very close to the Gavà station. And it could also happen that a “external element” the infrastructure fell on the catenary. In other words, the impact of a flying plastic would have generated the overvoltage that would lead to the “fusion breakage of the contact wire of the catenary due to overvoltage of a fastening element of the pergola”. These are things, he added, that usually happen acts of vandalism, attempted theft in the infrastructure or by Meteorological phenomena.
What he has categorically ruled out is that there was a failure in the railway installation. “The catenary was in perfect condition“, has riveted, despite the fact that Adif continues working on his research. More than one attendee – it was full of high and medium positions from Territori – has been surprised to verify such security in the face of an extreme that the experts have yet to deliberate.
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In this “concatenation of circumstances“, in the words of Contreras, the security measures designed to cut off or divert the electrical flow also played an important role, so that if produces an overload, the fire does not reach the interlock. Asked about the grounding of the grounding of the signal that was impacted by the wire charged with 3,000 voltsthe person in charge of Adif has assured that they are “checking their status to see what could have gone wrong or how it worked” during the incident. If it worked (or if it was grounded), the discharge would have dissipated and, surely, it would not have happened from there.
approved building
It is not a minor thing, because of that signal that is used so that the drivers know if they can exceed that point, the fire passed to the interlocking booth through the wiring. Regarding the fact that this installation is inside a prefabricated booth -which does not give much of a feeling of fortification, given the importance of the complex-, Contreras has assured that the place is “approved and complies with all regulations. What he did not have, he has admitted to her, is a automatic fire extinguishing system, but yes smoke detectors and manual fire extinguishers. Adif staff, a dozen workers, works from sunrise to sunset to minimize the affectation. It should be less than a month, although Gavà will take a little longer to be at 100%.