The railway workers believe that the lack of an inspector was key in the panic of the Bejís train – Heraldo.es

Panic and the lack of an inspector were, for the railwaymen, key factors in the incident experienced on Tuesday on a train that approached the Bejís fire, in Castellón, where the driver had to back up, a process that was delayed when activating the passengers the emergency system and it worsened when several left the convoy and were injured. As the hours go by, new details about what happened inside the train and in the moments of tension in which several travelers left the train are revealed. vehicle, which made the Valencia-Zaragoza route. Up to a dozen of them were injured; four remain hospitalized, two with a serious prognosis. Renfe maintained from the outset that these travelers had gotten off the train ignoring the driver’s warnings, a version that the railway unions and the Government also endorse, but some testimonies of travelers collected in the media gave a contrary version, in which the driver would have forced them to get off. Two union representatives consulted by Efe stress that the driver’s performance was exemplary and complied with protocol and to explain what happened they allude to two factors: no one notified Renfe and Adif of the fire – the first to alert was the train driver – and, secondly, the absence of an inspector who could attend and give directions to passengers, since the train driver was alone. This is what Rafael González Escudero, spokesman for the Railway Union of the Inter-Union Confederation, in a version also supported by the federal secretary of the U.S. Railway Union GT, Miguel Angel Escalona. Both agree that it was a passenger who encouraged the passengers to leave the convoy, not the professional in charge of driving it. This has caused “contradictory versions”, as some travelers thought that said passenger was the driver, according to González Escudero, who believes that the “puzzle begins to fit” as the circumstances become clearer. According to the story offered by the company, the driver stopped the train, in which 49 people were traveling at that time, at 5:54 p.m., when she observed a rain of ashes and smoke and communicated with command. When she resumed the march, going backwards, it was 6:20 p.m. In between, and alone, the unions indicate, the driver had to obtain authorization from the command to go back, change cabins to the rear and deal with passengers who tried to leave the train and that, in panic, they activated the emergency systems forcing the driver to deactivate the automatic brake to be able to circulate. When the march starts and until reaching the Caudiel station, the driver stops up to seven times to pick up the passengers who were along the tracks, according to this story. The driver would also have given this version to the investigators, according to the spokesman for the Railway Union, who explained that the railway never opened any doors, it only took four minutes to make the change of cabin and it was the activation of the emergency system that prevented him from leaving the dangerous situation beforehand. A task that would have been completed in “ten minutes” needed 25. The union spokesmen then insist that the situation would not have been the same if they had had an inspector in charge of informing travelers. In this aspect, they denounce that there are many trains without supervisors due to the lack of staff.