Renfe

That decision, Puente said, was made under inexplicable circumstances.

This resulted in the Renfe train crashing into the stationary Irio train about 25 kilometres, that's 15 miles, ahead.

And quite extraordinarily, Spanish media would appear to have got hold of audio recordings between the controllers working for ADIF, the Spanish State Track Authority, and the various train drivers.

They do seem to suggest, amongst other things, that one high-speed train was given clearance to move at 0836, even though another one ahead had stalled.

The victims have not been named for privacy reasons.

More than 500 people were aboard when a train operated by state-owned rail company Renfe crashed into the back of a stationary train operated by Erio, a private company.

Yesterday, local authorities confirmed the nationalities of all 69 killed, including 54 Spanish citizens.

Authorities are under pressure to ascertain the cause of the crash after audio recordings of interactions between train drivers and a control centre were leaked.

Recordings confirmed the control centre had ordered the Renfee train to resume its journey while all other trains on the line were kept stationary due to a faulty safety system.

And that was Aussies killed in Spain crash on page 8.

You're listening to Readings from the Canberra Times with the volunteer readers Craig Rebilliard and Sally Butes.

Two is a major issue.

The second one was caused on the face of it by the fact that a signaler gave instructions to the train, the second train, the two trains involved in this, the second train which was operated by Renfe, the Spanish national operator, to proceed on the tracks at a time that the first train was still stuck on the tracks and the second train smashed into the stricken train at about 200 kilometers.

Christian, this was after there'd been a power failure.

Absolutely.

And one has to add the fact that these are now very, very busy lines.

This particular section line, which has a junction, and therefore the initial section is quite busy before it reaches the junction in southern Spain.

There's lots of trains and there's new private operators, this IRIO service, in addition to Renfe.

There's competition.

But...

The two main state companies, one that runs the infrastructure, the tracks, Adif, yeah, and Renfe, which is the ones who run the train services, not the private ones, but the state ones.

The three management layers of these companies are occupied by politicians who have been...

They need to be placed in a job after they've done their bit.

The workers, to their credit, they're not messing about here either.

They've gone straight for the jugular.

They want Renfee to end ISEC's contract now.

That targets the contractor's income and puts responsibility on the public managers authorising the payment.

So the government can weep and make statements about Gaza all it likes.

But the place where the money of the public company finally goes is the true test of which foreign partners the government is happy to back.

Moreover, it doesn't shield anyone from scrutiny this way either, no matter how gushing their resume might be.

It is in the lap of Renfee, therefore.