The high-speed trains with which Spain debuted the AVE in 1992 They have been left without a maintenance contract. So it affirms the ABC, ensuring that Renfe put out to tender the service for more than 164 million euros and the tender has been void, so the operator has not yet found any company to take charge of it.
The problem. As the media reports, Renfe called a public tender in June 2025 to award a private company the maintenance and repair of its oldest AVE trains, those of the 100 and 100F series, the same ones with which the first high-speed commercial line in Spain, the Madrid-Seville, was inaugurated in April 1992.
The tender budget amounted to almost 165 million euros, according to inform the ABC, through the documentation published on the State Contracting Platform. The middle point that Renfe only received one offer and discarded it as it was considered invalid.
What trains are and why they matter. The 100 series was born from an order that Renfe placed in 1988 to the French manufacturer Alstom: 24 high-speed trains based on the Atlantique TGV, adapted to the Spanish market. They were, at the time, a milestone: the first railway system in the world to commit to refunding the ticket if the train arrived more than five minutes late (has aged quite a bit this commitment today). After more than 30 years behind them, these vehicles continue to circulate on some lines of the network.
How maintenance worked until now. The previous contract was in the hands of Irvia Mantenimiento Ferroviario SA, a company established in January 2008 by Renfe Operadora itself and Alstom Transporte. As detailed by the company on its website, for five years it has been in charge of the maintenance of 14 series 100 trains and 10 of the 100F series at the bases of Cerro Negro (Madrid), La Sagra (Toledo) and Can Tunis (Barcelona).
Just like share In the middle, its tasks covered both preventive and corrective maintenance as well as online technical assistance and repairs resulting from accidents or vandalism. That contract expired on November 30, 2025, according to ABC.
Why doesn’t anyone show up? It is clear that maintaining a fleet of trains of this age is not attractive for the sector. The 100 series models have more than 30 years of service, which implies difficulties in finding spare parts, specific engineering and technical personnel specialized in already obsolete systems.
Furthermore, according to account ABC, to this is added that Renfe did not publish the specifications openly, so any interested company had to physically travel to the Renfe Viajeros headquarters in Madrid to collect the documentation. According to share In the media, the operator justified this by the volume of the file.
What happens now? Renfe has no current contract for the maintenance of its oldest AVE and no company willing to take on the task. The operator has not publicly explained how it will cover this service or if it plans to relaunch the contest with new conditions, so we will have to see what the future holds for these trains. What we do know is that the 100 and 100F series are still in circulation, which makes this even more of a situation of some urgency if the safety of travelers is to be maintained. We’ll see how everything turns out.
Cover image | Wikipedia
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