Renfe: max 40 km/h if the LZB safety system fails

Renfe has sent drivers a mandatory instruction: if the LZB safety system fails, as it did in the Urda crash, the train must stop immediately and may continue only with the controller’s authorisation and at no more than 40 km/h.

LZB continuously sends the train its permitted speed and the distance it can safely travel via a cable along the track, and brakes automatically if the driver does not respond. According to the document seen by RTVE, after stopping the train may move only after receiving the LZB3 telephone message and “on sight”: no more than 40 km/h up to the indicated signal, whatever earlier signals show. The driver must also get confirmation that no other train is on that section.

On the day of the crash there was a partial LZB failure and, as RTVE reports, the AVE involved was told to resume “normal running”. The new instruction is meant to rule out that situation. Passengers on Alicante–Madrid services should allow extra time: when the system fails, trains will now run much more slowly than before.