Spain's transport minister Óscar Puente resigns after deadly Urda train crash

Puente steps down

On Tuesday, 3 November, Óscar Puente announced that he was leaving the post of transport minister at the end of his appearance before the Congress's Permanent Deputation over the Urda accident. He also said he would not stand on the PSOE list for Valladolid in the general election on 29 November. Puente had rejected calls to resign on Friday, 30 October, and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had also ruled out his departure in the days before. According to La Vanguardia, every opposition party had demanded his resignation, as had coalition partners apart from Bildu. Puente said he had decided to leave as soon as he heard of the crash but wanted to follow the start of the investigation, a version that contradicted his earlier statements.

The Urda collision

Two high-speed trains collided near Urda, in Toledo province, on Wednesday, 28 October. Público reports that more than 500 people were on the two trains and places the site about 150 km from Madrid, while Spiegel puts it about 130 km south of the capital. According to Spiegel, a Renfe train ran into the back of a stationary Iryo train. The Spanish railway accident investigation commission gave a provisional toll of 69 dead and said the number of injured still awaiting confirmation was very high, with 15 seriously injured still in hospital. Investigators are focusing on a failure of the LZB train protection system and on possible errors in instructions from the Adif control centre. In January, two high-speed trains collided at Adamuz in Andalusia and 46 people died, the second serious rail disaster in nine months.

Adamuz, January 202646

Urda, 28 October 202669

Adamuz, January 2026

46 deaths

Urda, 28 October 2026

69 deaths

Data from the article text

Safety measures and compensation

Madrid's government approved a 30 million euro aid package for victims and their relatives at its weekly Council of Ministers meeting, Spiegel reports. Before his hearing, Puente announced that train traffic on the Madrid to Seville line would be reduced, with Público citing the first weeks of 2027 as the horizon and Spiegel tying it to the start of the ERTMS signalling system. More trains would run as double compositions to keep seat capacity. He also announced new control-centre software with automatic alerts, and protocols requiring each control-centre decision to be validated by a second controller. When the LZB system fails, a second staff member would have to check and confirm instructions given to train drivers. Adif staff will get longer rest periods, fatigue checks and more training.

Budget dispute in Congress

In the hearing, Puente rejected criticism that maintenance spending was too low. El Confidencial quotes him defending his record in these words:

“I invest everything I have.”

Puente said his ministry spends nearly all of its annual budget, that execution for Adif Alta Velocidad had reached 91%, and that the ministry was working with a budget from 2023 that had never been updated. Without new state budget legislation, he argued, he had no room to raise maintenance investment further. El Confidencial notes that the government has not submitted a budget bill to Congress during this legislature.

Political reaction

During the hearing, Catalan MP Gabriel Rufián told Puente that he was a distraction from the government's handling of the crash, and the words were recorded in the session:

“You are a distraction.”

Joaquín Prat criticised Puente on Telecinco's El tiempo justo for repeating the exact compensation figure for victims' families six days after the crash. Gonzalo Miró had defended the minister on the programme the evening before. Juan Miguel Becerra, CEO of SW Demoscopia, said most PSOE voters back Puente staying in office, while a significant group would see his departure as a relief.