Neither Adif nor Renfe received notification of Emergencies
The images are shocking: the flames rise imposing before the windows of the Media Distancia train car that was supposed to link Valencia and Zaragoza. At 9:28 p.m. it was supposed to enter the Aragonese capital and, nevertheless, the convoy was in Caudiel with several of its passengers requiring medical attention, all after a few dramatic hours in front of the fire and the doubts of what happened so that the vehicle ended up a few meters from the flames.
At 16:22 minutes the train left normally from lto Nord Station Valencia, as the one at 12:13 minutes had done. The vehicle, the passengers and the staff are the responsibility of Renfe while the management of the traffic, the infrastructures and the stations is the responsibility of Adif. There is no notification of incidents on the road despite the fact that Toràs, a town that borders the road, had been evacuated minutes before.
The protocol establishes that circulation is suspended for Adif at the request of the state security forces. However, sources from Adif and Renfe assure that they do not receive any notification of a possible incident on the road or that the area was being evacuated.
The convoy progress normally. This is truncated, according to several people who were inside the wagons, due to the images they see through their windows. The fire can already be seen from the train, the atmosphere is tinted orange and yet it continues no official notice. When they pass Masadas Blancas, about to reach the Toràs halt, the vehicle stops. There are minutes left for six in the evening.
Renfe sources point out that if the driver continued until that moment, it was because no notice was received. They corroborate it from the train drivers’ union, which, they explain, usually, if there is any impediment, notifications arrive from Adif. The various sources consulted assure that the train driver only stopped when she saw a lot of smoke and the flames surrounded the train. That is, because she saw it and not because of an official notice.
This should have come from Forward Command Post of the fire where the Provincial Consortium of Firefighters and Emergencies of the Generalitat is located, explaining that this risk was unknown. Minutes before, the fire was 5 kilometers from the tracks and it was a sudden change of wind that generated the hell that they would experience minutes later in the wagons. A notice from the Command Post would have prevented the event. At 6:22 p.m., the Emergencies account on Twitter reports the interruption of circulation.
Actions with the train stopped
This is where the driver’s maneuver begins with the fire a few meters away. Go from the front cabin that was going towards the smoke to the rear to go back. He warns the railway officials that he is going to return to Sagunt and begins to start up the starting system, an operation that may take a few minutes, although not the nearly 26 it took to resume the march.
At that time, however, there are divergent versions of what happened. They coincide in the action of the driver running from one cabin to another, but not in whether she warned that no one should get out of the train. At that moment there are already broken windows due to the panic unleashed by the proximity of the flames and the stopped train.
Who and how the doors were opened is another question. The exits are blocked except if you know how to use the controls from inside. They say that it was the driver who unlocked the exits at the request to open them and the company says that the driver warned them not to leave.
In those 26 minutes there were those who they jumped off the train and ran and who they came back wounded. These events and the need to collect the wounded is what delays the return. It was then that the vehicle started, went back part of the way and came to the Caudiel station. The matter is already prosecuted and an investigation has been opened to clarify what happened and their responsibilities.