Adif, the rail infrastructure authority under the Ministry of Transport, warned the manufacturer that the trains would not fit through the tunnels, but Renfe, the passenger service operator also under the ministry, was not consulted and did not probe the issue. The result was chaos. The Fevemocho scandal, which erupted in early 2023 due to a delay of more than two years in the delivery of 31 metre-gauge trains because their dimensions clashed with some tunnels in Asturias and Cantabria, stemmed from a long chain of errors and a lack of coordination among Renfe, Adif, and CAF, the private builder. This conclusion comes from an internal audit commissioned by the Ministry to clarify what happened and published this week. The audit also highlights a clear lack of transparency at CAF, identified as the main party responsible for knowing about the design flaws early on.
In the audit, Renfe is urged to consider potential accountability by CAF for withholding information. It also notes that Renfe will soon need to negotiate changes to the audited contract to accommodate the new design that results from applying a comparative method used to address the error. The construction of the new carriages began a few weeks ago, with an expected service entry in 2026.
The audit further reveals that the State Railway Safety Agency is developing a guide for applying and developing the comparative method, with completion planned for later this year.
The report, based on numerous interviews and thousands of documents, finds that the builder knew well in advance that the trains could not pass through the tunnels. CAF learned this in November 2020, before signing the contract, after receiving information from Adif. Strikingly, the contract was signed 54 days later. Even more surprising, Renfe, the contracting party, did not know this for another year. When CAF signed the contract on December 29, 2020, it already had information that the jointly designed trains could not travel on the lines. Renfe declined to assess the audit’s content and did not answer whether it would pursue CAF for accountability, potentially leading to a legal dispute. The company also did not respond to a matter raised by this publication.
The audit, while clearly pointing to the builder for not providing information knowingly, also underscores the lack of coordination between Renfe and Adif that persisted for more than two years. It states that if Renfe had requested the information Adif already possessed about the metre-gauge network during contract preparation, it would have been possible to determine with certainty that the stated clearance in the technical specifications could not be met. The audit recommends Adif review its communication channels and procedures to ensure information provided in response to requests reaches all interested third parties, such as Renfe as the contracting party, in a timely manner.
Recommendations
In its conclusions, the audit outlines several steps for the entities involved. For Renfe, it notes that although there is no legal obligation to supervise the contract once signed, the company should ensure effective contract oversight and consider including knowledgeable personnel in working groups. For Adif, it calls for an internal audit of the progress of the metre-gauge infrastructure registry. It also clarifies that either there were no established channels for information transmission or those channels were not known or used by some parties.
The audit also analyzes the resolution of the Fevemocho situation, which opted for applying the comparative method to manufacture while preserving much of the original design. However, the changes will result in the loss of 17 seats out of 241, about seven percent.
The ministry, after releasing the audit and urging the leadership to oversee these processes, announced that to prevent another Fevemocho, the Directorate General of the Railway Sector will now ensure proper cooperation and coordination between Adif and the various operators.