trains

France has tried by all means that CAF does not take “the contract of the century” of the Belgian trains. There is good news

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The contract continues. That is what the Belgian responsible for one of the country’s greatest tenders have said. The so -called “Century Contract” will therefore fall on CAF, the great Spanish rail giant. The Spanish company will be in charge of providing trains to the “Belgian Renfe”. Refused. The State Council of Belgium has spoken. And what has decided is that it rejects the last resort that Alstom had presented in the award contest to provide the CNS (the Belgian Renfe) of a huge battery of trains to modernize much of the fleet. In The mail They detail that the Belgian State Council had already rejected a resource for Siemens last week and now has been dismissed that of Alstom. The process has been especially long and complex with numerous resources presented, comings and goings and reconfirmations. “The contract of the century”. Given the enormous volume of money that will move this contract, it does not seem that the famous denomination of “the contract of the century” is left great. To start, the investment will be 1,695 million euros but if the deadlines and volume of deliveries are met, CAF could receive up to 3.4 billion euros. The amount will be paid for The supply of 500 trains Automotores including three car models with battery hybrid propulsion that will have the task of replacing the old diesel locomotives in those roads that have not yet been electrified. With the rejection of the latest resources, it only remains to negotiate the last details and sign the greatest contract in the history of CAF. Long and complex. Getting with this contract has not been simple for the Spanish company. At the beginning of the year, Alstom and Siemens resorted to the award of CAF to CAF, claiming that the motivations for it were not transparent enough. In April, a Belgian court recommended suspending the contest. During that time, Alstom took the opportunity to press by pointing out that his proposal was better because they have a plant on Belgian soil, emphasizing that the decision to take out this contract would harm the citizens themselves because they were not betting on local employment as a decisive factor. The process, however, continued. However, CAF has had to wait for the Belgian authorities to definitely reject the resource of Siemens and a second resource by emergency presented by Alstom, who insisted again on a supposed lack of transparency. Israel. During the last bars of all this bureaucratic framework, various voices rose to question the award of CAF. They defended that a company that was associated with the Israeli Shapir could not be hired to build and expand the red and green lines of the Light Jerusalem Rail. The project is problematic because it will be built on illegal Israeli settlements. That has caused the Basque company to have been indicated in an official UN report as one of the companies that take revenues from the country’s antipalestine policy. They specify that with this type of works these illegal settlements are helped. 500 million euros. That is what is estimated to take coffee If the Israeli project goes ahead. This is valued at 1.8 billion euros to lift 27 kilometers of roads and 50 new stations. With them we want to connect the West Bank settlements with those of West Jerusalem. The business for CAF does not remain alone in the construction of this light meter. It is also about to decide when it will participate in the management of the lines. At the moment, it is being assessed that its involvement is maintained between 15 and 25 years once between operation. CAF shields that the award of the contract is prior to the Israeli invasion of Palestine. Do not get into. At least that is what they say from SCNB. Appealed by up to four associations that rejected that CAF received this contest for its involvement with the project in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the Belgian operator has responded that it cannot “determine the foreign or commercial policy of the companies involved,” they collect in The mail. Its position is contrary to other companies in the sector. The Norwegian sovereign fund, for example, has retired its investments in Shapir (the partner of CAF in the Israeli project) for the genocide committed in Gaza and the Manager Storeband also took CA from its portfolio for its involvement. The Catalan company Comsa was also part of the consortium that had gained the award of the blue line of the tram to Jerusalem but In 2024 he retired from the project and The Basque Siner announced that it will not serve steel to Israeli companies. Photo | CAF and ABODI VESAKARAN In Xataka | Renfe wanted to renew his fleet in Cantabria and Asturias. Until he was wrong with the width of his trains

The US is not a country for trains. They want to fix it with one that cross the country carrying people and trucks

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The train It is the spine of many countries. In Europe, communications between countries and within them They would not be understood without the trainbut there are others Examples like Japan or a China that has built almost 50,000 kilometers of high speed in record time. If we look at the United States, the case is the opposite: high speed that shines for its absence, with projects that are a nightmare and an overwhelming domain of the plane and the car for passenger transport. Of course, they have proposed to change the situation with a mastodontic project: a train network that connects New York and California. They have baptized him as ‘Transcontinental Chief’, and they will not have anything easy. Figures. First of all, some context and the proper names of this story. Amtrakor National Railroad Passenger Corporation, is the national passenger trains company in the United States. It was created as a commercial entity, but depended on federal and state subsidies for most of its routes. Its network covers more than 500 stations in 46 states and has a network of about 39,000 kilometers, including the NEC, the corridor between Boston and Washington DC Despite that huge network of roads and stations, in 2024 he transported about 32.4 million passengers. Much of the traffic corresponds to paths within the NEC and none of the paths exceeds 200 km/h. For comparing, in 2024, Renfe transported 35.2 million travelers in high -speed services and another 60 million in medium distance. We do not count the 442 million nearby, since they are short journeys. Chief Transcontinental. It is evident that the country needs a railway impulse, something that has been attempted on a small scale (even with trains that do not use fossil fuels), but the projects do not finish curdling. That is where Ameristarrail enters the scene, a private company dedicated to the proposal and development of long -distance interurban and high capacity interurban services. The project they are promoting is the one baptized as ‘Transcontinental Chief’ to connect New York and Los Angeles by train. He proposed itinerary He would connect the Hoboken station in New Jersey with Los Angeles, through cities such as Philadelphia, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Albuquerque and stop at the National Park of Grand Canyon. In this way, large urban and tourist poles would join. Recycling. He project From America has a couple of good ideas to get ahead. The first is to take advantage of what is already paid. That is, use the roads and stations that are already built to give new life to deficit infrastructure operated by other entities and by Amtrak itself (such as the Southwest Chief). Also use locomotives and wagons that already exist, such as beds beds and men’s restaurant cars because the full trip will be long, since the speed of those tracks is limited to 150 km/h. According to the company, if this plan is followed, a new legislation will not be necessary that would complicate and delay the project, but no additional public financing, since, in essence, the work is done and you only have to put the infrastructure up to date. Because although the United States does not have a solid passenger transport network by train, it does have a wide railway line focused on merchandise transport. Hybrid. The second good idea is to try to squeeze this train as much as possible. In addition to passengers, the idea of ​​America is to turn the train into a kind of ferry. This implies that private cars can be charged in platform cars so that a family, for example, can go from end of the country with their car, but without driving them. In addition, it has also been projected that there would be other cars capable of loading complex trucks, next to their drivers. Thus, truckers can get on the train, rest their mandatory time while the journey towards their destination does not stop. They have called it ‘Rolling Rest Stop’ would be a pioneer in the country, in addition to giving a boost to certain routes of merchandise trucks that cross the territory. MEH. Aim Football World Cup. Now, from Amtrak they don’t have it so clear. At the moment, the public company has release that they are not going to promote this proposal for America because they are not clear that public investment has to be made. It is not closed, eye, since the drivers maintain that there is enormous potential to convert long -distance services into profitable and sustainable lines, and that is something that Amertk needs. Images | Ameristarrail, Amtrak In Xataka | Renfe has a new and gigantic project in progress: a night train to connect Europe from this to west

In Japan, the average trains delay is 96 seconds. It is not magic, his secret is called “Paka-Yoke”

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We are not going to discover anything if we tell you that the high Spanish speed has not lived its best summer. To get an idea, Four out of 10 Renfe trains They have suffered some type of delay. We have had breakdowns, Lost trains during the night and the final tip of the fires. But beyond summer, the truth is that the Spanish road network is giving important symptoms of fatigue. Only last June, The birds arrived with a medium delay of 19 minutes About the scheduled time. In April the figure was almost 21 minutes. According to the published report by the company, of the 9,607 trains that circulated last June, only one in three arrived in time Or they were delayed less than five minutes. We know this because Renfe herself has published it but the breakdowns have also affected the trains of Iryo and Ouigo that have to circulate on the same ways. The data point to two possible reasons. First, Spain begins to give symptoms of having an infradimensive infrastructure to host the arrival of new operators (OUIGO and IRYO) and a Growth sustained in the number of trips. Second, the data warn that not enough has been invested in maintenance and modernization of the roads. It is very likely that the situation we are living is a mixture of both reasons. But a question overwhelm: if in Spain we have problems with three trains companies … how do they work in Japan where six different companies operate? 96 seconds Move by Japan, especially for Honshu (his main island in which cities like Tokyo, Kyoto or Osaka are found) is very simple if you decide on the high -speed train. The frequencies are so bulky and the delays so exceptional that the reliability in the system is absolute. The known as Japan Rail It can, also, be chaos for those who visit the country for the first time, taking into account that even Six companies operate on their lines. However, each of them has its own reserved space so they do not compete on the same roads as it happens in Spain where Renfe has to deal with Iro and Ouigo. Despite this, four of those Six companies (JR East, JR Central, JR West and JR Kyushu) are completely privatized and only two (JR Hokkaido and JR Shikoku) are state -owned. There is, however, a fundamental difference. In Spain, following European orders, the management of the roads falls exclusively on Adif (which was public and also had to be privatized) that charges some canons to companies that want to operate in their railway framework. AND The roads are shared partly between medium distance and high speed trains. In Japan, however, companies manage infrastructure and maintenance of the roads in which they operate but the network of Shinkansenthe famous bullet trains, have a completely separated infrastructure from the rest of the trains and is managed by the Railway Construction, Transportation and Technology Agency of Japan (JRTT). This physical separation allows to reduce the risks (a fault of a slower train does not impact bullet trains) and install systems specifically designed for this type of trains. That has allowed them to evolve the acquaintance concept of Paka-Yoke which can be translated as “failure proof”, referring to the fact that all human decisions are supervised by an exahustive system monitoring system, which shields the network of those possible human errors. This has allowed Japan to be a reference in world high speed. Until Spain and China surpassed the country in railway kilometers of this type of trains, the Japanese country was a leader but it still is in punctuality. In 2024, The average delay in the Tokaid line was 96 seconds. However, systems are designed for trains to enter a margin of 15 seconds at the station. Most of them stop in the first 6 seconds scheduled. Japanese punctuality is an extremely valued quality. Culture forces to ask for public forgiveness when schedules are not fulfilled, sometimes reaching surreal extremes. Like the day that a railway company had to make its face because one of its trains He left the station 20 seconds earlier than expected. Photo | Henry Perks In Xataka | Japan asked its citizens what bothers them most about tourists on the train. The responses betrayed the nation

Renfe trusted Talgo and his Avril trains to benefit from the particularities of Spain. Already look for solutions in Germany

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Spain is a particular country regarding the railway field. That is why the pair formed by Talgo and Renfe sounded especially good to compete with the new trains operators. Both companies could benefit and get a strategic advantage in the Galician corridor, while allowing him to fight in the rest of our country. The reality is that nothing has gone as expected. And now Spain looks for trains in Germany. “They have not given the best possible result”. This is how Óscar Puente, Minister of Transportation, has described the performance of the Talgo S-106 series that Renfe has had in operation. Words pick them up eldiario.eswho point out that Puente will go to a Siemens factory in Germany in search of solutions. The intention, everything indicates, is to reverse the bad results of the Spanish trains with an acquisition of Germans that allow Renfe to compete again on equal terms with Ouigo and Iroyo, who have found the open doors of high speed Low Cost In Madrid-Barcelona. “Corporate”. The bridge trip comes after Renfe will withdraw his Avlo trains from the Madrid-Barcelona corridor. The company’s official response is that AVE trains adapt better to a line in which a “corporate” client profile is better exploited. It is true that Half of the trips That Renfe was carrying out in this corridor made them with the AVE and that the Avlo market share was significantly lower than that of Ouigo and, above all, that of Iroyo. However, the real motive of its abandonment is that some Talgo trains of the S-106 series were being used. A crack. Metaphorical, if we talk about Renfe’s strategy. Material, if we talk about avlo trains. Those known as Avril, projected to compete with these two foreign companies in business volume, presented serious structural problems a few weeks ago. The company He took them out of circulation although at first He denied the problems. Finally, has taken out of circulation The Avlo service but there is no record of a trains relocation. That is, now ouigo and Iro will compete among them two for high speed at low price in that corridor. An oxygen ball for ouigo, which had retired some trains To show more battle in the Andalusian corridor. Recurring problems. As we pointed out, the bridge itself has already suggested that the operation of the aforementioned S-106 of Talgo has not been expected. The first ones that were launched in the Galician corridor and in the line with Asturias. In both cases they accumulated delays and breakdowns. Besides, Nor did they receive the best criticisms for its performance on the roads. Months later, the change of the year also affected the new cars of Talgo. A computer problem left them unused in the early hours of 2025causing important delays the first days. A few weeks ago the most serious fault occurred. Trains cracked (literally). The first solution was circular at a lower speed. The second, probably the most sensible, remove them from the line. Disappointing. The problem with Talgo’s S-106 series is even more disappointing if we take into account that it is a type of train that allows Renfe to Competitive advantage over Ouigo and Iro In the Galician corridor. Talgo is The only company that had built trains that could adapt to the different widths of our country. With compromised production, no one can buy more trains and, therefore, Renfe is in a monopolistic position in the short term. Therefore, perhaps, the disappointment is greater. Finally, trains that had to demonstrate the good Spanish doing in the railway sector have been working for Spanish roads and delays. But, above all, he has closed Renfe the doors of his great tool to compete against his rivals in a corridor where he dominates. Now, Spain will seek solutions in Germany. Photo | Nelso Silva and Siemens In Xataka | Cabinas instead of traveling as sardines: Nox’s key to convert the night train into the alternative to the plane

Germany was the country of beers, sausages and the punctuality of their trains. The latter is ending

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We live on myths and stories that many times do not fit reality. For example, Germany has long touched together with an external perception where its citizens They are very workerseven more than the rest of Europe (although the data Say something else). Also that they are the nation of sausages, beer and legendary punctuality of their trains. And either. The collapse of a myth. Yes, for decades, Germany cultivated the image of a country where rail punctuality was as part of national identity as beer or sausages. Today that image It cracks: Only 56% of long -distance trains arrive within the official margin of six minutes, a remarkable fall compared to 85% of the nineties. The situation has become so serious that Switzerland He has vetoed The passage of German trains beyond Basel, fed up with the delays that affect their own network. Cases like that of a damaged train near Vienna that left 400 passengers trapped For six hours in a tunnelor the closure For nine months From the Berlin-Hamburg line for repairs, they reflect The collapse of a system punished for three decades of infinance. Between wear and frustration. The railway company acknowledges that 80% of the delays are due to An obsolete infrastructureprone to failures and overloaded, which forces drastic solutions and a expensive modernization. For passengers, experience has become everyday calvary: endless waiting, crowded trains and lost connections that alter both professional and personal life. Travelers such as banker Michael Prieggen or retired Gerald Vogel summarizes it In the Washington Post Non -Rodeos: reliability is already the exception, and the network is in a state of “disaster.” In stations such as wuppertal or bonn, delays accumulate and complaints become a indignation choir that expresses a crisis of trust in one of the symbols of German efficiency. Investment promises. Solutions? Given this scenario, the government has allocated record figures: 25,000 million dollars in 2025 and more than 116,000 million until 2029, with part of the funds from A historical package Investment in infrastructure and climate that is a change of course in German fiscal discipline. Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder has described punctual levels as “unacceptable” and has promised substantial improvements to reach 75-80% of specific trains in 2027. However, experts and user associations They warn that the hole created for thirty years of abandonment will not be solved in a few years and that the network still requires greater injections of capital and structural reforms. National identity. Plus: The German rail crisis is not just a mobility problem. As we said, it touches sensitive fibers of the national identity. In a country where precision and reliability are considered collective virtues, see how the rail system collapses or even It compares With other nations, it results deeply humiliating. That the Swiss (referents in rail efficiency) distrust of German trains is an even greater symbolic blow. If you want, the debate transcends the technical and reflects a broader anxiety about Germany’s ability to maintain the prestige of its economic and social model. Delays and breakdowns, repeated daily, not only hinder trips, but They erode trust in the nation that was once synonymous with mechanical punctuality. Europe Heat. It is the last of the legs to analyze. The current state of Deutsche Bahn It is both an operational crisis as a more than possible mirror of LEuropean dilemmas: infrastructure that age, insufficient investment and a growing tension between national expectations and economic realities. It’s not just that the old continent is not prepared for a war Due to its waysis that Germany, once of rail modernityhas become an ad for navigators. The nation is trapped between the memory of its past perfection and the urgency of reconstructing a system that has stopped complying with the Germanic Puntalidad ideal. In that gap, not only the credibility of a company is played, but part of the country’s own identity, with Europe at the bottom of the frame. Image | Raimond Spekking In Xataka | The myth says that Germans work more than the Spaniards. The data tell a different thing In Xataka | Germany has tried the four -day week and is clear about its verdict: 73% of companies will not return to five

trains lasted a century

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Amazon has promised to invest 100,000 million dollars in AI data centers in 2025. Microsoft, 80,000. Google, 75,000. Goal, 65,000. The figures are absolutely dizzy, and are only part of the global investment that many other companies are carrying out in this area. The situation begins to be comparable to what occurred more than 140 years ago, when another investment fever conquered the United States. In that case it was the railroad. But there are crucial differences between one and the other. We are spending as if there were no tomorrow. Investor Paul Kedrosky did That interesting comparison Between spending on AI data centers and the one that was done on railroads more than a century ago. According to him, Capex’s figures (capital vessel, capital expenditure) for the United States in 2025 in the AI scope are absolutely fired and could represent according to their data between 1.2% and 2% of the Gross Domestic Product of the US. What is that? A lot. Lot. Source: Paul Kedrosky. More investment than with the Puntocom. The situation seems to overcome even the one that was lived with the investment in telecommunications companies both during the Puntocom bubble and during the era of the 5G networks, in which there was also a shotx fired. According to Kedrosky, the percentage of the US GDP on that occasion was 1%, but the capex for AI already round data centers (as little) 1.2%. A WSJ chart recently showed the situation: Capital spending (capex) quarterly of the Big Tech does not stop growing. And everything is for AI. Source: WSJ. Only the railroad attracted more investment. There has only been a situation that exceeds the current one. It occurred in the 1870-1880 decade, with the railway fever that made CAPEX shoot up to 6% of the US GDP at that time. The investment in AI data centers is still somewhat far from that figure, but it is still amazing, and above all, it does not seem to go less. Comparison between the capex dedicated to telecommunications and the one that is now being dedicated to data centers and IA. And 2025 will go further. Source: Paul Kedrosky. Money everywhere. As this analyst explains, the CAPEX set is not based only on the capex of the large technology companies that we mentioned at the beginning of this article. In addition to these gigantic investments there is a growing debt issuance to support these investments, private capital and new “Special investment vehicles“(SPVS) that are created precisely to support these massive capital flows. Even Xi Jinping is scared. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has warned of the danger of excessive investment in data centers. In your country there are More than 250 data centers Under construction, and last week he warned of the risk of betting without brake on AI and electric vehicles: “With regard to projects, there are some important aspects: artificial intelligence, computer power and new energy vehicles. Should all provinces in the country develop industries in these directions?” Do not invest in other things. That extraordinary investment in AI data centers – or talent, tell them to the finish line– It is making any other segment much more difficult to capture money to continue developing. According to Kedrosky, the situation is analogous to which it was lived with fever for telecommunications and investments in other types of infrastructure, something whose effects continue to place. Bubble danger. Faced with this unbalanced obsession with Big Tech to create more and more data centers there is a reality: AI, although useful for certain scenarios, still does not prove to be really revolutionary. Openai’s commitment, Google, Microsoft or goal is absolute, but it is almost more for the fear of getting too late to the market than by the fact that this market makes sense in itself. All this has made it talk for a long time AI bubblethat It could be comparable (or more worrying) than the bubble of the Puntocom. Better spend now than regret it later. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, He already reflected About the situation with a clear message: “It is very likely that many companies are oversizing (their investments in AI). But, on the other hand, I think that all the companies that are investing are making a rational decision, because the disadvantage of being left behind is that you could stay out with the most important technology of the next 10 to 15 years.” They are still spending little. While many think that companies are spending too much money on AI, some analysts think they are spending little. Jim Cramer, from CNBC, affirmed That “these companies are not spending more in AI, they are missing. Maybe they are not investing bad. The expert Noah Smith Analyze in your Newsletter Noahpinion The situation and remember important details: The telecos boom in the 90s and that overinversion led to the bubble of the Puntocom The railway boom led another gigantic crisis in 1873. In both cases, companies created too much infrastructure and bet more. The expectations were exaggerated, and the companies could not meet the loans they had asked. But be careful: in both cases something more important happened. Those who invested extraordinarily did not invest badly, but invested too soon. The railroads were disruptive, as were the telecommunications. There are those who defend that in fact Bubbles are good For innovation. But it is not the Railroad (for the moment). Kedrosky concludes with a comparison that serves as a warning: what is being built with these AI data centers are not railroads: The train tracks have lasted more than a century and their cost-benefit ratio It has not been reduced just after the passing of the decades (although there has been investment to renew them) Data centers are short -term facilities, and the expensive GPUS on which they are based have a much shorter life cycle. Your cost-benefit relationship is much more debatable Inflating the economy. This analyst has one more revealing data: without that … Read more

Renfe trusted the Avril trains to face the Low Cost of Ouigo and Iro. They do not stop giving problems

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When the competition has pressed, Renfe has seen how his commitment to a low -cost service to the AVE had been as necessary. The problem is that this service, called Avlo, is operated by trains that in just over a year have not stopped giving problems. Retired avlos. It has returned to normal with the five Avlo trains frequencies between Madrid and Barcelona for the month of August but for a few days the cheap offer of the company in the corridor faded completely. First the five trains retired. Then the frequency was in three options in the day. Finally, they can already be bought normally. It is what Víctor de Elena accountjournalist electionomista.eswho had written an article last Friday explaining that Renfe had stopped offering his services of the Avlo line between Madrid and Barcelona. Since last Friday, when the information was published, the sale of tickets has been returning to normal. What happened? Everything indicates that Renfe has been putting patches to a complicated situation. He explained about Elena that Renfe had found a fissure in one of the components of the Bogies of an Avril train. This would have caused that, temporarily, it would be suspended The sale of all Avlo tickets in Madrid-Barcelona. Hours later, Renfe sources would confirm to the medium that during one of the maintenance reviews last Monday, July 21, one of the five 106 series presented “a fissure in an element of the tractor bogie called a bast.” Subsequently, a review of the five trains that serve and the affected systems were replaced. Now, according to Renfe “trains are operating without any anomaly.” More slowly. The trains operate, yes, but below the expected speed. They point out in electionomista.es That according to the State Railway and Adif Security Agency, Renfe operates the trains at 250 km/h of maximum speed, instead of the 300 km/ha those who were operating in a stretch of 190 kilometers that extends between Puerta de Atocha and Ariza (Zaragoza). In your communicationRenfe points out that the company “through its Renfe Travelers and Renfe engineering and maintenance, as a railway company and entity in charge of maintenance, respectively, as well as Talgo in its condition as manufacturer and the State Railway Security Agency, guarantee that the circulation and operation of trains is carried out with total security for travelers.” In the statement they point out that the offer is being reorganized with the S106 trains but do not specify anything about the speed at which trains circulate and emphasize that the sale of tickets is being made “normally.” In Xataka We have contacted the company but so far we have not obtained an answer. The Avril. The S106 series in which the fault has been detected corresponds to the trains known as Avril. Trains that since they were launched in 2024 They have caused various incidents. The S106 series It is designed by Renfe to fight the lowcost but also to be able to offer a service in Galicia that You will not have competition in the short term. For this last line, Renfe has 15 trains in his hands that can change the wide track automatically. Then, it has another 15 trains to operate between Madrid and Barcelona. Of the latter, they carry the specifications to operate as AVE but in five other trains the places have increased from 507 to 581 seats and thus be able to compete as a low cost option. A controversial arrival. When the Avril trains made an appearance they have already arrived surrounded by controversy. They launched in May 2024 but The material had been delivered with three years delay. Then, of the 30 trains, 12 of them had been delivered in a first lot. The first steps of the Avril were not the best. They promised to improve the connection between Galicia and Madrid but in the first days they registered delays of more than two hours and in later days of more than 30 minutes. Neither In the Asturian line The promised time sales were being fulfilled. But, in addition, the trains did not like among the experts either. Accounts in social networks that follow the current world of the train and its novelties portrayed the excess noise and vibrationsas well as They questioned the quality of some materials used in the rolling material. More incidents. The incidents did not stay here. Above all, Avril trains are remembered by the fault in the Galician line that on the first day of this year he left thousands of passengers on the ground or in the middle of nowhere. In a kind of “2000 effect”, trains were retained by a software problem With the year jump. And Barcelona-Madrid has not been the only one. Just a few days ago, a S106 series train collapsed at low speed at the Gijón station without consequences for travelers. At the moment, Renfe has not given explanations about what happened. Photo | André Marques 432 In Xataka | “In 1961 it took Bilbao for three hours and five minutes. Now it takes three and ten”: Cantabria and the drama of Spain with the train

cars and trains

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At the beginning of June echoes began to arrive from a situation that could now explode. Car manufacturers and their suppliers gave the alarm voice before a gloomy horizon facing the shortage of supplies due to restrictions on Chinese exports of rare, mineral and magnets. In fact, the problem has forced some to suspend the production of certain models. Now everything is complicated a little more, because those minerals are not essential only for cars. They are also for war. Mitigation strategies. When the first alarm voices sounded in June the reaction of the great European manufacturers was disparate. BMW confirmed that part of their supplier network had already been affected, while Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz now assured maintaining a Stable supplythanks to long -term strategies to reduce critical mineral dependence. Mercedes, for example, said to be working on New compositions of materials that allow to dispense with heavy rare earths such as disposium in its electrical propulsion trains. However, most recognized that it was a situation Very volatile. From Japan, Nissan confirmed to be coordinating with his government and the association of car manufacturers in the country to find solutions, while Suzuki had already suspended the production of Your swift model. Rearme and bottlenecks. Everything has been complicated a little more since Europe has confirmed that plan to rearma increasing 5% of GDP In defense. The vertiginous increase in military expenditure in Europe, which provides for a growth of up to 80% between 2024 and 2030, threatens to stress even more an already weakened industrial supply chain. The plan, promoted after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and consolidated by countries such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom, will carry the military budget of the current 417,000 million euros to a estimated figure between 650,000 and 750,000 million euros. Collateral effects They counted In Forbes That only one third of these funds will be used for equipment, the accelerated growth of the aerospace and defense sector will have Collateral effects Notable on civil industries, especially those that depend on the same suppliers. For example? Saturation indications have already been detected in the Aeronautical productionas demonstrated by the reduction in the delivery of commercial airplanes, which in 2024 remained a 30% below of the peak achieved in 2018. This mismatch is just an advance of the funnel that can be generated when manufacturers prioritize military contracts (more lucrative and long -term) to the detriment of sectors such as rail, automotive or energy, which depend on shared technical supplies such as sensors, hydraulics, connectors or electronic cards. Vulnerable pieces. An analysis of more than 600 secondary suppliers in the European market has revealed a dangerous overlap between defense needs and value chains of strategic civil industries. In industrial machinery, for example, the availability of fundamental components such as bearings, mechatronics or pneumatic systems could be drastically reduced as suppliers redirect productive capacity towards war applications. Trains and cars. In the railway sector, key pieces such as printed circuit plates, microelectronics or control units also compete for the same origin. The automotive industry, already beaten by the recent scarcity of semiconductorsrun special danger: the growing Military demand It can aggravate the lack of harnesses, cables, sensors and hydraulic systems, delving a production crisis that barely begins to stabilize. Even the energy sector will be affected by the growing wiring shortage Technician, connectors and transmission elements that form the backbone of their critical infrastructure. This transverse tension could trigger a new wave of delays, increase in costs and productivity drop throughout the European economy. Uncertain future. In addition, the Expenditure acceleration military arrives in a context where global supply chains have not fully recovered from a marked decade for chained crises: the pandemicthe War in Ukrainelogistics collapse during the rise of electronic commerce, and more recently, the threat of commercial wars and crossed tariffs. Despite this, most companies continue to manage their value chains reactivelywithout a clear proactive strategy that allows future disruptions to be anticipated. This lack of forecast exposes entire sectors to the risk of productive collapses at a time of fierce international competition, where Logistics agility It is as critical as technological innovation. In fact, we have a clue as a mirror with the most immediate precedent (the world scarcity of semiconductors between 2020 and 2023), which showed that, without anticipatory vision, even the most robust industries can be paralyzed. The new industrial order. Faced with this panorama, analysts point out various strategies Urgent to prevent the rise of rearme dragging with the civil economy. It points to companies diversify Its supplier bases, homologate new supply channels, improve transparency with logistics partners and establish internal monitoring cells that operate in real time for anticipate disruptionsin the style of the mechanisms created during the chips crisis. Plus: Take advantage of the future that is already here, incorporating Predictive analysis and AI tools that allow emerging bottlenecks to be detected and redirect supply flows quickly. As explained The transport expert Sebastian Janssen, the resilience can no longer be a reactive quality, “but a structural asset of the business model.” If you want also, in a Europe where Rearme accelerates And the industry competes for the same gearthe ability to resist shaking Logistics will make the difference between surviving and disappearing and, along the way, of making our lives a little less complicated. Image | BORN, Get Archive, Ken Heaton In Xataka | Spain refuses to spend 5% of GDP on artillery. Because what you really want is to sell it to Europe In Xataka | Spain has decided to rearm and for the moment there is a company that is benefiting from it: Indra

China wanted to be the queen of high -speed trains. So he built all the longest bridges in the world

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Although Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are immersed in a war for have the highest skyscrapers in the worldwhen we talk about megaconstructions, there is no one to have China. It doesn’t matter if we talk about tunnels, Dams, roads and even half -skyscraper. And, when we talk about bridges, there yes There is no rival. From time to time They complete a new pharaonic bridgebut if there is something that shows China’s muscle about it, they are the bridges of the Beijing-Shanghái line. Because it is in it where the three longest bridges are located in the world. Massive and … boring? He Great Danyang-Kunshan bridge It is the longest bridge in the world. It measures just over 164 kilometers and can also be the most boring bridge in the world. The reason is that it is a bridge in which functionality prevailed. It is part of the high -speed network that joins Beijing and Shanghai and in its construction, 10,000 workers used 450,000 tons of steel and 2.3 million m3 of concrete to give life to a structure that had to endure possible ships of ships and the impact of earthquakes. It has 2,000 pillars, 22 tunnels, it has an average altitude of just over 30 meters and trains circulate at a speed of more than 320 km/h. Declaration of intentions. The most striking thing is that it only took four years to complete the work. It is an achievement if we consider that other bridges, such as the Constitution of Cádizthey took more than seven years for about three kilometers. They began in 2006 and the works were completed in 2010, inaugurating both the bridge and the line in 2011. The investment? 8,500 million dollars, and although in later bridges we have seen an aesthetic intention by the engineers, that of Danyang-Kunshan was a declaration of intentions. It became a global reference in rail engineering, but above all in a sample of the Technological advance of the country when undertaking the Infrastructure construction large scale in record time. It is something that has also attracted attention to subsequent works, the speed at which things do, especially, in many occasions of works of great complexity. In dark red, the bridge. In clear red, part of the full line Beijing-Shanghai, a monster. Because although this bridge Have the Guiness record in length and it was an important technical advance, the most imposing thing is that it is only a piece of the puzzle that supposes the high -speed line Between Beijing and Shanghai. It is a connection with a length of 1,318 kilometers and, apart from that of Danyang-Kunshan, there are three other bridges that are on the list of the 10 longest in the world. He Great Bridge of Cangde measures 115.9 kilometers and the Great Tianjin Bridge It “stays” at 113.7 kilometers. The three are the longest in the world, and in the seventh place on the list is the Great Bridge of Beijingwith 48.2 kilometers. The four were completed for the inauguration of the line in 2011, assuming a pharaonic work and, in total, representing a third of the total line length. The artificial island of the Hong-Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge, which is a bridge over the water until it becomes a submarine “bridge” It is called obsession. Because, if we look at the list of the longest trains in the world, China is a constant, monopolizing with eight structures the top ten positions. Not only are they very long bridges to house train lines (the Weinan Weije It has 102.7 kilometers, but it is not from the Beijing-Shanghai line), also for roads. The fifth longest bridge in the world is Hong-Kong-Zhuhai-Macaohe longest maritime bridge With 55 kilometers (and, this yes, quite attractive), the eighth of the list is the Quingdao Haiwanwith another 44.5 kilometers of road and the tenth is the bridge of line 1 of the Wuhan Metro with 37.7 kilometers. Within those positions of honor, we only find a 54 -kilometer Thai bridge, the Band Na Expresswayand the Lake Pontchartrain Road in the United States with 38.4 kilometers. Images | Mnxanl(2) Pechristener, Highestbridges In Xataka | Three highways, 20 access ramps: China has the most diabolical exchanger in the world in Huangjuewan

How Microsoft managed to make hospitals, trains and elevators trapped in Windows

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This year 50 years of a historical moment were completed. On April 4, 1975, two young people who responded to the name of Bill Gates and Paul Allen gave life to the one who was going to be one of the greatest software empires in history: Microsoft. We counted for such a marked date that after five decades, the amazing thing was not that it continued to exist, but to continue being so relevant. Well, here is a story that perfectly summarizes what Gates and Allen began … and why they have money for punishment. Digital eternity. The story was recovered this weekend The BBC. The British media told that, despite the unstoppable advance of technology, there is still a surprising portion of the modern planet that continues to work thanks to equipment that execute Microsoft operating systems launched decades ago. From elevators in New York hospitals that still use Windows XP to German trains that They require expert technicians In Windows 3.11 and MS-DOS, the Microsoft software legacy not only survives: it is deeply rooted in the critical infrastructures of the day to day. In other words: although the company has turned its Investments in artificial intelligence Like your new future betthe present is full of echoes of its past, with machines that literally are still starting after 20 or 30 years. A phenomenon that reveals two things: the durability and stability of certain ancient systems … and the enormous cost and complexity of replacing them, especially in sectors where the functional prima on the modern. The paradox of obsolete efficiency. But there is much more, of course. For ATMs, Industrial printersmetropolitan trains or hospital systems, changing operating system is not as simple as clicking “update.” It requires rewriting proprietary software, updating specialized hardware and complying with safety and compatibility regulations. The result is that many institutions continue to depend on officially abandoned technologieslike Windows NT or Windows 2000. Even in government contexts, such as the Department of Venarians of the United States, medical records They are managed About a digital architecture that was born in 1985with textual interfaces that demand commands in capital letters and complete routes of files. This persistence not only reflects a form of institutional inertia, but also a business strategy. Microsoft (Gates and Allen) had a “visionary” thought from the point of view of business: allowing users to continue using existing hardware, but selling licenses Instead of imposing obsolescence, to Difference of, for example, Applewhich promoted total renewal. The invisible trap. The human cost of maintaining these systems is also tangible. The BBC explained it With cases of professionals such as psychiatrist Eric Zabriskie, who recounts whole days conditioned by the start of machines that took 15 minutes to turn on, or artisans such as Scott Carlson, who depend on CNCS that only work with Windows XP (despite the frequent failures). This situation generates a dependency class Sordaone in which systems are still alive not by nostalgia, but by necessity. For many, the most worrying is the structural fragility that implies: critical infrastructure depend on technologies for which they already There is no technical supportneither developers available, nor security patches against cyber threats. In other cases, as in the RSan Francisco Railway Edeach day continues to start inserting a floppy disk To load a two system. Yes, the image is anachronistic, But real. Archeology of the present. Of course, not everyone sees the situation with resignation. Some, such as the researcher Dene Grigar, have assumed the conservation of these systems as an art form and cultural archive. In his Electronic Literature Laboratory At Washington State University, it keeps operational 61 Ancient computersfrom the 70s to the early 2000s, to preserve pioneer digital works that depend on original hardware and software to be experienced as conceived. In his opinion, modern emulators cannot capture the complete experience of interactive and participatory works that defined the beginnings of the digital narrative. Your collection includes From video games until Instagram zinesall kept carefully museum. The only thing missing, counts, is a machine capable of reading five -inch floppy disks. Immortal empire. The summary is that the longevity of Windows systems is not accidental. In the background it is deeply linked to that commercial philosophy focused on customer flexibility: allow large and small organizations to continue using their old computers without forcing them to disruptive technological leaps. Thus, Windows has not only been a productivity tool, but has become a kind of Invisible layer of modern civilization. A paradox too, since while Microsoft looks at the future with His commitment to AIa good part of the world still lives within the ecosystem that the company built decades ago. As summed up in the BBC Developer M. Scott Ford, “Microsoft is simply something you are trapped.” The longevity of their past systems is testimony to their domain and business approach: allowing users to continue using old equipment while paying licenses, a strategy that, decades later, still maintains alive technological ghosts of the past. A kind of Ctrl+Alt+Supr Eternal That, like Lee Vensel saidProfessor of Virginia Tech, “makes Windows the final infrastructure, and that’s why Bill Gates is so rich.” Image | Armartinell, Charis Tsevis In Xataka | 50 years later the amazing thing is not that Microsoft continues to exist. The hallucinating thing is that it remains (Tan) relevant In Xataka | Bill Gates has told how he made Microsoft into the giant that is now: “I focused my life only on a single job”

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