Pressure is mounting on Adif president Luis Pedro Marco de la Peña ahead of Transport Minister Óscar Puente’s appearance before Spain’s Congress on Tuesday. Opposition parties and some parliamentary allies of the Socialist group are calling for Marco de la Peña’s dismissal, potentially alongside Puente’s, after the crash at Urda, Toledo, which killed 69 people on October 28.
Puente is scheduled to appear before the Permanent Deputation of Congress at 5 p.m. to explain the tragedy. The government is also expected to announce emergency measures to reinforce safety on the Madrid-Seville line, including an automatic order requiring trains to proceed below 40 kilometers per hour when the LZB protection system fails and the secondary ASFA system takes over.
The investigation is examining whether trains stopped near Urda were given the wrong operating instruction by Adif’s traffic control center at Madrid-Atocha. In this situation, the LZB3 protocol requires trains to proceed at reduced speed and with enhanced caution, while the LZB4 instruction allows normal running speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour under trackside signaling. The trains involved were reportedly issued the latter instruction after stopping near Urda.
Adif, the railway safety agency and the three operators serving the Madrid-Seville route—Renfe, Iryo and Ouigo—are working on a unified protocol for situations in which LZB is unavailable. Engineers consulted by the source also advocate adding more signals so that the ASFA system operates with shorter sections of track. The ERTMS safety and signaling system has been deployed along the entire route since June and is expected to enter service at the beginning of 2027, after testing during weekend night maintenance periods.
Marco de la Peña’s position has been under scrutiny since the Adamuz crash in Córdoba, which caused 46 deaths. That investigation has focused on the unexpected breakage of a rail or rail weld on the Madrid-Seville line. In March, the Adif president rejected accusations that the company had removed or concealed evidence, while also defending the company’s infrastructure oversight and safety record.
He later said in the Senate that he would not resign, citing his commitment to establishing what had happened and preventing another similar incident. Adif has reported that the LZB system fails between 150 and 200 times a year on the Madrid-Seville route, including 13 incidents around Urda during 2026. Investigators are expected to examine how the infrastructure manager responded to those failures.
Adif also denied on Monday that Marco de la Peña had opposed increasing maintenance investment. The company said the maintenance budget had risen from 703 million euros in 2018 to 1.375 billion euros in 2026, and that the president had included the amount proposed by the company’s infrastructure directorate in this year’s budget.
Marco de la Peña, a 57-year-old civil engineer from Santander, became Adif’s president on September 17, 2024, replacing Ángel Contreras. He previously held senior positions in the private construction sector and served as director general of the Basque public railway infrastructure agency Euskal Trenbide Sarea, as well as Basque infrastructure and transport responsibilities.
The pressure on Adif follows the departure of senior officials after the Adamuz crash and a subsequent incident on the R4 Rodalies line in Gelida, Barcelona. Political and technical sources cited by the source expect further dismissals once Puente has presented the government’s account to Congress.
Sources: El País Portada.