Spain: According to the Spanish Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility Oscar Puente, the manufacturer will start assembling the first ten trains at the Gipuzkoa plant on 26 February.
The vehicles are due to enter service in 2026, two years later than planned. The national operator Renfe ordered 31 trains, in 2020 at a cost of €258 mln, and later exercised options for a further 25 vehicles.
At the beginning of 2023, CAF paused the contract because of incorrect data in the specifications, which did not allow trains to pass through some tunnels. Several officials at both Renfe and Adif, the infrastructure operator, resigned over the situation. According to the publication in El Espanol, the incorrect data was due to Renfe’s misinterpretation of the declaration on the network prepared by Adif. The trains were redesigned by using the existing trains as a reference.
