In the nineteenth century, Spain made the strange decision to build its ways in Iberian width. Now they will be a gift for Renfe in Galicia

Renfe can breathe calm. The company has a huge business in the Galician corridor. The volume of travelers Between Madrid and Galicia he has shot to the point that airlines are retreating. Time savings since high speed arrives is such that many are choosing to pass to the train due to pure comfort or time flexibility.

The Galician corridor is part of the next package of liberalization of the roads, next to the trains with destination Asturias, Cantabria, Cádiz and Huelva. It will not be, at least, until 2028 when the competition is palpable on the tracks because Adif is not complying with the deadlines planned.

But Madrid-Galicia has another peculiarity. It is very likely that in 2028 we will see competition on their ways.

To find the reason we have to travel to the nineteenth century.

The particular Spanish railroad

Each new technology arrives with a good rosary of standards of all kinds. It has happened with electric cars and passed with electricity itself. Also with measurement standards or, as in this case, train tracks.

The railroad had started in the early nineteenth century. Although the steam machine was already born in the 18th century, it was not until 1804 when Richard Trevithick built A prototype in which the concept applied to transport. The steam locomotive was born.

That one of those huge irons with wheels will pull a kind of drawers and could move the goods faster than they had done seemed like a great idea. So great that it soon caught and in 1830 the first train line was opened with passengers. They were the famous 50 kilometers that separated Liverpool from Manchester whose first trip headed George Stephensonwho was the ideologist of the construction of those first route.

Those first trains circulated through some roads of 1,422 millimeters, 4 feet and 8 inches. Shortly after, those same ways widen half inch until reaching the famous 1,435 mm. Then they did not know but they had just adopted the “international width”, which is mounted in most trains in the world.

Those measures also served to establish Two categories: narrow path (below those 1,435 mm) and wide via (above).

The good results of the first trains made the railroad make the leap to continental Europe and the United States. But, like everything in this life, there were those who thought the system could be improved and that it was worth trying.

That person was Isambard Kingdom Brunelan excellent British engineer who would create the Great Railroad of the West, joining London with the southwest, western England and much of Wales. Brunel thought that the higher the width of roads, faster speed could reach a train because the greater the stability achieved. Thus, it extended the track width up to 2,140 mm.

Then a war of standards began that ended up resolving the Commission of Railroad Widths in favor of Stenphenson and its width of 1,435 mm. It was 1845.

In Spain, at that time, we were engaged in the same fight. Railroad yes, but … how?

That doubt was the one that set fire in the middle of the 19th century. Observing the good results that were being achieved outside our borders, the Government began to receive requests for the granting of licenses that allowed them to exploit the roads.

Aware that it was necessary to harmonize the matter, they consulted a commission of engineers led by Juan Subercase, number one in the Corps of Engineers, acting president of the Advisory Board and director of the School of Engineers since 1837. He was helped Calixto Santa Cruz, number one of his promotion of 1839, and José Subercase, who in addition to his son was also the number one in his promotion the following year, 1840.

Together they drafted the report 17.10.1844, on the Madrid Railroad to Cádiz, which recommended to reject a concession to build a railroad from Madrid to Cádiz. This concession was requested by the French engineer Juqueau Galbrun, which was certainly ironic over the years.

Explains J. Moreno Fernández in a document in which the whole story of that controversial decision tells that none of the mentioned engineers had left the country and known firsthand how the railroads were abroad. That, perhaps, was one of the reasons why it was omitted that France had opted for international road width.

And it is that Subercase was a firm defender of a width of six feet Castilians. The 1,672 millimeters that would end up receiving the name of “Iberian Width”. The defense is that a higher track width forced to use more powerful locomotives. In those days they thought they could increase vaporization with a wider boiler and that this was essential to, in a mountainous country like Spain, to have sufficient power to move the train.

They also defended that a higher track width allowed a more stable step per curve but the truth is that time showed that neither one thing nor the other were key. The international width has been versed enough to be used in mountainous areas and the largest boilers in the trains had the problem of increasing the weight so the gain was diluted.

In the government they thought that Subarcase motivations They were correct and they didn’t care that in the neighboring country they bet on a narrower track width. To import, they did not care that our other neighbor, Portugal, also promoted their railroads with the international width.

In 1844, it was finally decided that the Spanish measure of the six Spanish feet was the one that should be protagonist for its orographic peculiarities. However, that did not condition the government that gave the approval to two routes built on that international width that was quickly imposing.

First in a line between Barcelona and Mataró, projected from the beginning with that exceptional width for the Spaniards and logical for the rest of the world, as a consequence of an error of their own subercase when reviewing the project. The second line between Alar of the King and Santander, projected by English who launched the ultimatum to build the corridor only if the width of their country was chosen. The Government preferred the exports business of Castilla to northern Spain before complying with that stubbornness of the Iberian width.

At the same time, from Portugal they protested. They saw how the possibility of connecting with the rest of Europe with a line that joined Lisbon and Madrid With the border it was getting further. To the point that seven years later, In 1851 by diplomatic letter They begged Spain to change their decision and bet on the width that was being imposed in Europe.

The application, as we can see today, fell in broken bag. By then Spain already had more than 1,300 kilometers of roads built, they considered that their width was better than that of the neighbors, they claimed that changing it would be an unassumable expense … and considered that there was not so much problem in that lack of connection between Spain and the rest of Europe.

Immediately, a rumor began to run Spain. The Spaniards preferred to isolate themselves from the north because with different paths they made it difficult for a new French invasion. A little over 40 years had passed since the last and fear among the people were justified. However, There are no official documents that support this possible decision.

The Galician case

It seems much more obvious than the engineers who devised the first measures of the Spanish railroad opted for a track width for which no one else opted. That road width has remained in good part of the territory but the construction of the bird led, logically, the international track width.

That road width is the one that today covers the journey that Madrid separates from Ourense. But, from that section, the road goes on to use the Iberian width So trains meet a wall.

Or they were.

Talgo S106 are the first to circulate in Spain with A variable width. In the change of road width, the train adapts to the new infrastructure and can “jump” from one to another. It is a milestone that has allowed to connect Galicia and Madrid by train in record time but whose results have been overshadowed by the structural problems that these trains have suffered in Madrid-Barcelona, ​​cracks in the cars included.

These trains are manufactured by Talgo and, right now, they have all their guaranteed productive capacity for Renfe. The company has compromised deliveries for years so He has left companies like Ouigo or Iryo without reaction They could be interested in the Galician corridor.

ADIF will allow competition between Madrid and Galicia but this It will not exist in the short or in the medium term Because no one can manufacture the French and Italians the trains they need to stand up to Renfe.

So, yes.

Renfe can breathe calm and thank Juan Subercase.

Photo | José Spreafic and Rail Fox on Wikimedia

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