New incident on the Madrid-Seville high-speed line. Due to the catenary falling on a train between Yeles and La Sagra, traffic has been interrupted for 14 hours and 45 minutes, coinciding with the start of the summer holidays. According to various sources, some passengers remained on the trains all night.
The incident, recorded at 20:29 hours, forced all Renfe, Iryo and Ouigo services to Andalusia and Toledo to stop progressively, leaving several trains at a standstill along the line.
A catenary collapse, the cause of the disruption
According to industry sources, the incident occurred when the catenary fell on Avant 08190, which was travelling on the Madrid-Puertollano service at La Sagra (Toledo).
The reasons for this failure are unknown, but it also affected the adjacent track, leaving both tracks between Torrejón de Velasco and Mora without power. Traffic was immediately suspended between Yeles and La Sagra.
To rescue the trains that were halfway through, Adif mobilised its 336 series diesel locomotives. However, some sources report that two trains have been held up all night.
Along with the rescue of the trains, the infrastructure manager deployed specialised electrification technical teams to start the repair work.
During the incident, an 84-year-old woman, a passenger on one of the trains that stopped at Villaseca de la Sagra (Toledo) with 318 passengers on board, had to be taken to the Hospital General Universitario de Toledo due to respiratory failure.
Service was restored almost 15 hours later
After 11:15 am this morning, Adif announced that train traffic between Madrid and Andalusia had been restored after repairing the fault and restoring power to the two affected tracks.
However, delays are expected to continue until traffic returns to normal.
Renfe reports that the departure of the first trains have delays of up to nearly five hours, and established alternative transport plans with buses between Toledo/Puertollano and Madrid, as well as cancelling trains between the capital and Andalusia.
Ouigo has also reported cancelled services, while Iryo has not publicly reported its cancellations.