Comment by andy12_
1 month ago
The most important context is this image[1] from the Guardia Civil. Using Google Maps, and using as context the tree, post and yellow connection box in the image, we can place its location at 180m before the accident in the tracks of the Iryo train. The image appears to show a track welding failure. This would match the reports of some passengers[2] that reported that the "train started shaking violently" before the accident.
Photo at 38.00771000519087, -4.565435982666953
Accident at 38.009292813090475, -4.564960554581273
[1] https://img2.rtve.es/im/16899875/?w=900
[2] https://x.com/eleanorinthesky/status/2012961856520917401?s=2...
The first image looks like sabotage to me. Continuous welded rail sections are much longer than this gap.
Just a few weeks ago, terrorists twice tried to sabotage rail lines in Poland, endangering a passenger train with hundreds of people.
> "[Prime Minister Donald] Tusk said that a military-grade C4 explosive device had been detonated on 15 November at about 21:00 (20:00 GMT) near the village of Mika."
> "The explosion, which happened as a freight train was passing, caused minor damage to a wagon floor. It was captured on CCTV."
> "Tusk said the train driver had not even noticed the incident."
> "A previous attempt to derail a train by placing a steel clamp on the rail had failed, he added."
> "The second act of sabotage, on 17 November, involved a train carrying 475 passengers having to suddenly brake because of damaged railway infrastructure, said Tusk."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gknv8nxlzo
So, was it the Russians or the Ukrainians (as is the case with the Nordstream pipelines)?
Wouldn't the gap simply be the result of loss of tension after the weld broke? Metal expands in the heat (about 1cm per degree C per km). Weather shows it got down to around 0C in Córdoba last night while the summer record is around 47C so one would expect a fairly large gap once tension is released.
That's not the way stuff like this is built nowadays. Meaning the thermal expansion and shrinkage of rails is considered and accounted for(or should).
Thus things like these are integrated:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breather_switch
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We will know once the report is public. In Poland, they explicitly left C14 to make sure everybody understands who did it.
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Looks like a pull-apart: bad weld, then cold weather caused contraction from both sides making a gap. Pretty massive for a pull-apart but not impossible.
If sabotage it will be plain as day to a trained eye. I await the report. That break could also be explained by the rail heading away in that photo snapping at that point because the train pushed it out, noting the rail has rotated 90 degrees clockwise -- something did that work, and it was probably the train going out and over. I'm not a rail tie expert (nor is anyone likely to be on HN) so I don't know if this is an unusual failure mode. But there was a line change point intersection immediately south of the crash. My money is there was a fault (accidental or deliberate) there, not at this snapping point.