Spain's transport minister, Óscar Puente, announced his resignation on Tuesday, 3 November, during an appearance before the Permanent Deputation of Congress, where he had spent more than four hours answering questions about the train collision in Urda (Toledo) that killed 69 people the previous Wednesday. According to Infobae, Puente said he was stepping down as minister and also giving up his place on the Socialist Party's lists for the 29 November general election, where he had been the lead candidate for Valladolid.
"Renuncio al cargo y a ir en las listas para las próximas elecciones" — I resign the post and my place on the lists for the coming elections — Infobae quoted him as saying in his closing remarks. The announcement came at the very end of his testimony, after he had addressed every parliamentary group.
Infobae reports that Puente said he had informed Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of his decision minutes before making it public, and thanked the president for his "confianza sin límite" — unlimited confidence. The minister described the move as a decision of empathy with the victims, according to Infobae's coverage.
Why it matters
The resignation lands in the middle of an election campaign already dominated by the deadliest rail accident in recent Spanish memory. Infobae reports that Puente appeared before Congress with minimal backing even among the government's usual allies, who joined the opposition in calling for him to leave his post. The political calendar has resumed after days of official mourning, with parties reworking their plans for the 29 November vote.
Infobae notes that polling before the crash had shown the PSOE recovering steadily, though still behind the PP, with a clear majority for a PP–Vox bloc. Since Urda, the socialists have slipped in every published survey, the PP has widened its lead and Vox has recorded its largest gain of the legislature, according to Infobae.
What Puente told Congress about Adif and the LZB failure
Much of the session was taken up with questions about Adif, the state rail infrastructure manager, and about the signalling system at the centre of the investigation.
Infobae reports that Puente walked through the changing composition of Adif's management committee under successive presidents. He said the committee had six members under Juan Bravo, five of them from outside the company; 13 between 2018 and 2021 under Isabel Pardo de Vera, seven of them external; and 11 under Ángel Contreras, with four outsiders, at a time when Puente himself led the ministry. Under the current president, Pedro Marco de la Peña, 16 people have passed through the body, only three of them from outside the company, with the rest drawn from Adif's own staff, the minister said.
Puente defended the current Adif leadership, telling Congress its members have more than enough preparation and proven experience for their roles. According to Infobae, he insisted they are there for managerial and technical reasons rather than political ones, and said he would not allow anyone to play with people's lives.
On transparency, Infobae quotes him saying he does not blame an individual worker but does not hide the facts either, and asking whether the right response in a crisis is to bury one's head and offer no explanations.
The minister also gave figures on LZB signalling faults. Infobae reports that of more than 170 incidents recorded this year in the LZB system, 64 affected train movements. Puente called this relatively frequent and presented incident numbers going back to 2010. He rejected the idea of an upward trend, saying there is no pattern showing a linear increase and that the figures vary by year. He compared LZB with ERTMS, used on the Madrid–Barcelona line, and said ERTMS does not offer clearly superior performance to LZB.
Responding to EH Bildu on the cause of the failure on the day of the crash, Puente said that, as far as is known, the LZB went down because of a communication fault between three computers. Infobae reports his explanation that these computers must stay synchronised and that the system blocks automatically when the information they hold does not match.
Puente acknowledged that the origin of the fault is still unknown. According to Infobae, the technology firm tasked with analysing the incident has not been able to carry out the technical examination because it lacks the required judicial authorisation.
Aid package and a strike threat
Puente's appearance overlapped with a Cabinet meeting expected to approve a package of measures for victims of the crash. Infobae reports that Sánchez had said on Monday the decree would include financial aid doubling the amount paid under the compulsory passenger insurance, along with a specific mechanism to speed up compensation payments.
The government's position has not been the only pressure point. El Mundo reports, in coverage carried alongside Infobae's, that the government had ruled out resignations and announced a set of measures aimed at minimising risks, and that unions responded by calling a rail strike in the middle of the election campaign. During the session, Infobae reports, PSOE spokesman Patxi López defended the government's handling of rail policy and accused PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo of using the victims.
What happens next will turn on two tracks: the government's victim-support decree and the compensation mechanism it contains, and the unanswered question of why the LZB system failed, which now depends on a judicial green light for the technical analysis.
