Comment by jonp888

> Massive efforts are done to implement reforms to conform to EU standards, believing that that’s how the “superior” EU members do it (Germany, NL, Nordics…).

I can't speak for Germany or the Nordics, but here in the Netherlands the government is doing just about anything in their power to keep foreign competition from our rail network. The only lines serviced by foreign operators are the ones that would cost the national operator more than they would bring in and (some of) the international train services.

Our "high speed" rail is a joke. The trains themselves are fine, but the bridges over them are too brittle for the train to actually achieve high speeds, so it's operating at less than half the speed Spanish high speed rail is operating at. If anything, the success of the Spanish rail operators is an argument in favour of actually bringing competition to Dutch rail operators.

That said, the Dutch railway network is very different from the Spanish railway network. We're a small, densely populated country with many stops along just about any track, barely giving most trains time to accelerate even between larger city centers. The network is complex, the rails are extremely busy all hours of the day, our trains run on an idiotically low voltage and two trains with a dozen minutes in delays can back up the national train grid in no time if they slow down in the wrong spot. There are only a few long-distance high-speed rail options that make sense, some of which already sort of exist (Eurostar to the south), some of which our neighbours plainly don't want (any Dutch rail project crossing into the German border), and some of which are hardly financially viable (trains from the big cities to remote parts of the country) in a country that doesn't want to spend money on public transport.

It's a common pattern far beyond the EU. One big driving force is that if you have an existing solution that achieves 80% you have much less incentive to change than if your current state only achieves 50%. So the "inferior" country modernizes to the new 100% solution while the "superior" one might stay on the 80% solution for far longer

exactly...39 dead and we should feel more confident, that's how shitty we are

This EU free-rider behavior is unfortunately typical of French public sector policy.

European energy markets were famously liberalised in 1996, allowing French state-owned EDF to acquire the previously state-owned monopolist Electrabel in Belgium. All the while France negotiated an exemption for not privatising EDF because of its nuclear facilities. EU regulations should prevent this type of free-ridership: state-owned companies shouldn't be able to compete abroad if they don't face competition at home.

The railway network has been mismanaged and plagued with incidents for years. See it for yourself: ADIF was aware that there were issues in Adamuz for months[1].

[1]: https://www.elespanol.com/reportajes/20260119/adif-notifico-...

I think much manufacturing adheres to the die-young, die-old principle (Often mentioned in the Backblaze reports), manufacturing defects shows up early on, time of stillness and then as it ages it starts to fail.

The tracks were laid in May 2025, that means no winters had passed before now and any defects in the tracks due to temperature differences hadn't had a chance to appear before now.

But brand new doesn't mean the repairs / mainenance were done correctly. It could both be brand "new" and defective.

We've seen lots of serious fuck ups in Europe lately: including for a start several cases of maintenance improperly done on big passenger planes that nearly led to hundreds of passengers deaths (several planes have been diverted in the last months and the cause was improper maintenance).

I'm not saying improper repairs/maintenance on the rails are the cause: I'm saying it's a fact we've seen improper repairs/maintenance on passenger planes in the recent months.

> The government during that time (of the same party than this one) did nothing.

It looks like you're quite interested in pointing out that the culprit of this 2013 accident was the same party which is now in office, but even if we take a look at your sources, it says something different:

"Las víctimas creen que hubo cuatro decisiones críticas. Primero, el cambio de proyecto original realizado por Blanco, que suprimió el sistema de seguridad ERTMS en la vía justo antes de Angrois. Segundo, la decisión del ministerio de Ana Pastor de desconectar el sistema embarcado en el Alvia, desactivando una medida técnica que habría ayudado a mitigar el riesgo de un error humano como el que tuvo el maquinista. La tercera decisión fue ignorar un aviso por escrito de un jefe de maquinistas advirtiendo del riesgo en la curva de Angrois. La cuarta, que Adif y Renfe permitieron poner en servicio la línea sin haber realizado el análisis y evaluación de riesgos que exigía la normativa."

There we can read that not only the former minister Blanco (socialist) was to blame according to the demonstrators, but also Ana Pastor (conservative) whose party was in charge when the accident happened.