A fibre-optic failure temporarily shut down rail traffic on Wednesday morning at Madrid Puerta de Atocha and Madrid Chamartín–Clara Campoamor. The fault, detected at around 08:00, disrupted communications at Adif Alta Velocidad’s traffic control centre (CRC) in Atocha, which oversees the management and supervision of more than 1,000 kilometres of Spain’s high-speed network.
According to Adif and Renfe, the incident was caused by a fibre cut during works carried out by a Renfe maintenance contractor. The outage compromised signalling and traffic-control systems, preventing proper train regulation for just over an hour.
Knock-on delays hit all three high-speed operators — Renfe, Ouigo and Iryo — with hold-ups of up to 60 minutes on services to destinations such as Toledo, Ciudad Real, Valladolid and Valencia. Services to and from Sevilla, Barcelona, Alicante and León were also affected by the loss of capacity at the Madrid hub.
By 09:20, technical teams had completed repairs and communications were restored, although it took several hours for timetables and headways to return to normal. During the disruption, alternative operating protocols were activated to keep a proportion of services running and cushion the impact on passengers.