Are Spanish Trains Safe After the Toledo Crash? Train vs. Plane vs. Car, by the Numbers

Your Guide

Mose Hayward

Riding Spanish Trains for 20 Years

If you have a trip to Spain coming up, you may be asking yourself whether you should still take the train or book an alternative (flight, bus, car sharing, rental car…). I’ve ridden Spanish trains for two decades—high-speed, regular, and small regional ones—and I’ve always felt safe and comfortable on them. But how I feel isn’t evidence—and readers understandably have questions about Spanish train safety, given recent events.

On the morning of Wednesday, October 28, a Renfe AVE ran into the back of a stopped Iryo train near Urda, in Toledo province, on the high-speed line between Madrid and Seville. By that afternoon, many dozens of people had been confirmed dead and more than 100 injured, and officials expected the toll to rise. It came just nine months after the Adamuz crash in January, which killed 46. As Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez put it, it is “unacceptable for a country like Spain to experience two high-speed rail accidents in a single year.” My heart goes out to everyone who was on those trains.

For those planning travel in Spain, below I’ve worked through the numbers as carefully and honestly as I can, including the uncomfortable ones, along with what’s running, what’s been canceled, and what to do with your tickets.

Skip to whatever matters most to you:

The Short Answer: Are Spanish Trains Safe?

• Yes, Spanish trains are still a safe way to travel—far safer than driving. In normal years, on a per-kilometer basis, a Spanish train carries roughly 1/80th of the risk of traveling the same distance by car. Even counting this year’s two disasters and the 2013 Angrois crash, the train comes out about five times safer.
• 2026 is the grim exception. Measured over the year alone, Spain’s trains have been as deadly per kilometer as driving, or more so. One-year figures swing wildly whenever a catastrophic crash happens; the long-run record is a much better guide to your next trip.
• For a trip like Madrid–Barcelona, the train and the plane are in the same very-low risk range. Driving is several times riskier.
• Which train company you ride with doesn’t meaningfully change your safety. Various train operators—Renfe (AVE, Avlo, Alvia), Iryo, and Ouigo—all run on the same tracks, under the same signals and the same control centers. So there’s no reason to think any one of them is less safe than another—we have explained the differences between them and how to compare on price and services.
• As of this writing, high-speed trains between Madrid and Andalusia are suspended. Renfe and Iryo are offering free changes or refunds for affected trips—contact the operator directly for your trip.

The 2026 Spanish Rail Accidents

Here’s what’s known so far about these fatal accidents, as reported by officials and Spanish media. Investigations will take place and more info and causes will be forthcoming.

• Shortly before 9 a.m. on October 28, 2026, Renfe AVE 2080 struck the rear of Iryo train 6076 at kilometer 118 of the Madrid–Andalusia high-speed line, between Mora and Urda. Both trains were traveling from Madrid toward Seville; one had stopped on the track, and several carriages derailed, some of them falling down an embankment.
• By mid-afternoon, the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha reported 68 dead and more than 100 injured. On October 29, the toll rose to 69.
• In a preliminary account, Transport Minister Óscar Puente said the line’s automatic train-protection system (known as LZB) failed at around 8:30, which automatically stopped about six trains on a stretch of more than 60 km. There appear to have been mixed messages and some degree of human error about how and whether the trains were to proceed.
• The Guardia Civil and the CIAF, Spain’s independent rail accident investigation commission, have questioned the control-center operator. These are early statements, not conclusions.
• On January 18, 2026, an Iryo train from Málaga derailed near Adamuz (Córdoba), and an oncoming Renfe Alvia struck its rear carriages; 46 people died. The investigators’ preliminary report found that the rail had already fractured at a weld before the Iryo passed over it.
• Two days later, a retaining wall collapsed onto a Rodalies commuter line near Gelida (Barcelona) during a storm, killing a trainee driver.

Are Spanish Trains Still Safe? What the Numbers Say

Train disasters like these grab attention precisely because they’re both rare and horrifying: many people are killed or hurt at once, and images and videos get published and shared.

Of course, that also means trains are an everyday form of transport that very rarely suffers such incidents.

To understand the actual risks to you as a passenger, you have to compare deaths with how much traveling people do. The standard measure is deaths per billion passenger-kilometers.

• In normal years, Spain’s trains are very safe. In the 12 years from 2014 through 2025, about 10 rail passengers died in accidents in Spain while passengers traveled some 330 billion kilometers by train (Eurostat). That’s about 0.03 deaths per billion passenger-km, right in line with the EU average.
• Spain’s record is punctuated by rare disasters: Angrois, near Santiago de Compostela, in 2013 (79 passengers killed when the driver took a curve at more than twice the permitted speed), Adamuz in January (46), and on October 28 near Urda (69 as of October 29).
• Counting everything from 2006 through October 2026, all three disasters included, Spain’s rate is about 0.47 deaths per billion passenger-km. Since 2016 alone, with both of this year’s crashes, it works out to about 0.39.
• By comparison, people traveling by car in the EU die at a rate of about 2.5 per billion passenger-km (European Commission figures). So over any span of several years, a kilometer on a Spanish train has been five to six times safer than a kilometer in a car—and about 80 times safer in a normal year.

If you look only at 2026, about 115 passengers have died on Spanish trains over roughly 30 billion passenger-kilometers, or around 3.8 deaths per billion. That’s higher than the EU-average risk in a car, and about the same as the risk of traveling by car in the United States.

So: 2026 has been the worst year for Spanish rail passengers in decades—but even this year, the risk per kilometer on a Spanish train has been about the same as in a car in the United States.

Also, one year is a poor judge of overall risk. Rail deaths come in large clusters. 2013 was about as bad—Spain registered the highest ratio in the EU that year—and it was followed by a decade with almost no passenger deaths. Road deaths are a steady constant: 1,785 people died on Spain’s roads in 2024, about five every single day. Rail disasters are followed by scrutiny and follow-up action. After Adamuz, for example, Adif imposed speed limits on many stretches after drivers raised concerns about the state of the tracks.

There’s also a reason we tend to fear the wrong things. Frequent flyers stop being afraid of flying, and people who drive to work every day don’t think about the odds of a crash on the way. Those risks exist, but they’re vanishingly small, and we don’t let them stop us from getting out into the world. If you’re not used to trains, try not to let one terrible week, or even one terrible year, outweigh the much larger body of evidence.

Madrid to Barcelona, Door to Door: Train vs. Plane vs. Car

Per-kilometer figures don’t work well for flying, because almost all of a flight’s risk is concentrated in takeoff and landing, and you also have to get to and from the airport. So here’s a more practical comparison: the estimated chance of being killed in an accident while traveling from Puerta del Sol in central Madrid to Plaça de Catalunya in central Barcelona, including the taxi rides to and from the station or airport.

What stands out:

• The train and the plane are in the same tiny-risk range. On Spain’s long-run rail record shown here, the plane comes out a little ahead; based on a normal year for Spain’s trains (about 1 in 32 million), the train does. Either way, the differences are smaller than the uncertainty in the estimates.
• On a plane trip, the taxi rides to airports are riskier than the flight. Of course, you could also opt for public transport instead.
• Driving the whole way is about 5 times riskier than the train on Spain’s long-run record, and about 50 times riskier based on a normal year. The only way the train comes out worse is if you judge it by 2026 alone.
• The car figure is an EU average for all roads. The Madrid–Barcelona drive is almost entirely on motorways, which are the safest roads by design: in 2019 they accounted for only 9% of EU road deaths. So your real risk on that drive is probably lower than the table suggests, though still above the train’s long-run record.
• A motorcycle is in a different league: roughly 15 times riskier than a car per kilometer.

Should I Fly Instead of Taking the Train in Spain?

From a safety standpoint, it makes little difference: both are very safe, and both are far safer than driving. If you’d simply feel calmer on a plane for a while, that’s a perfectly reasonable choice.

For most trips, though, I’d still choose on convenience:

• Madrid–Andalusia (Seville, Córdoba, Málaga): if the high-speed line remains closed, flying is the fast option. Flights and seats were added in the wake of the latest accident.
• Madrid–Barcelona and other routes: the trains are running and I highly recommend and use them myself. They go from city center to city center—from Madrid Atocha to Barcelona Sants, for example—without the long waits of airports or discomfort of buses. I go into the tradeoffs in my in-depth comparison of flying, trains, and buses in Europe and my guide to trains in Spain.
• Long-distance buses are another very safe option on many routes, often the cheapest; see my tips for cheap European bus travel.

Renfe, Iryo, Ouigo, or Avlo: Which Is Safest?

There is no difference in safety terms between the Spanish operators in any sense that should affect your choice. It’s one of the most common questions after an accident, especially since Iryo trains were involved in both of this year’s major disasters.

Here’s why the company you choose matters much less than people tend to assume:

• They all use the same railway. In Spain, the tracks, signals, train-protection systems, and traffic control centers are run by the state infrastructure manager, Adif, not by the train companies. Renfe, Iryo, and Ouigo all pay Adif fees to run their trains on its network.
• They all have to meet the same safety requirements. Under EU rules, a rail company may only run on the network if it holds a valid single safety certificate showing that its safety management system meets the required standards.
• As far as is known, both of this year’s disasters trace back to infrastructure and its operation. At Adamuz, the investigators’ preliminary finding is that the rail had already fractured at a weld before the Iryo train arrived. At Urda, the minister has attributed the crash to a decision by Adif’s control center after a signaling failure.
• Train drivers had been raising the alarm about the tracks. Spain’s main train drivers’ union warned Adif in August 2025 about heavy wear on the tracks, including where the Adamuz derailment later happened.
• One nuance: the companies aren’t irrelevant. They employ the drivers and are responsible for maintaining their trains. The 2013 Angrois crash involved a Renfe driver who was distracted by a phone call and took a curve far too fast, and his conviction was upheld in January. That said, there’s no evidence that any of today’s operators has a weaker overall safety record than the others.

So my recommendation: choose the Spanish train for your trip based on price, schedule, comfort, and luggage rules. My comparison of Ouigo, Iryo, Avlo, and Ave covers the (relatively small) differences, and I’ve written up my experiences with Iryo (plus the Iryo basics), Renfe’s AVE, Avlo, and Ouigo.

Are Trains Running? What’s Been Canceled?

As of October 29, 2026:

• Madrid–Andalusia high-speed line: suspended until further notice.
• Renfe has also stopped its Barcelona and Valencia trains to Andalusia via Madrid, and has paused ticket sales on the route until December 13. That isn’t a reopening date: trains will run again as soon as Adif reopens the line. Renfe says an alternative transport plan starts on October 30. Meanwhile, special trains on the conventional line link Madrid, Ciudad Real and Puertollano, taking about an hour and a half longer than usual.
• Iryo has canceled its Andalusia trains with no restart date, and Ouigo has canceled its Madrid–Andalusia trains until at least November 2.
• Madrid–Toledo and Málaga–Seville high-speed services are running normally.
• No reopening date yet. After the Adamuz crash, the line stayed closed for almost a month, from January 18 to February 17, while damaged track was rebuilt. The timeline this time will depend on the investigation and repairs.
• For live updates, check your operator’s website or their X accounts: @Inforenfe, @iryo_eu, and @InfoAdif.
• The operators are offering free changes and cancellations for bookings affected by the suspension; check your booking email and contact the company directly.
• EU passenger rights still apply. If your train is canceled or will be more than 60 minutes late, you can choose a full refund, rerouting as soon as possible, or travel on a later date of your choice, at no extra cost. If the company doesn’t offer an alternative within 100 minutes, you can arrange your own train or bus and claim reasonable costs. If you do travel and arrive late, the minimum compensation is 25% of the fare for delays of 60–119 minutes and 50% for two hours or more.
• “Extraordinary circumstances” don’t cover this. Rail companies don’t have to pay delay compensation for genuinely external events. But under the EU regulation, failures by the infrastructure manager (Adif) and strikes by a company’s own staff don’t count as extraordinary circumstances.
• Iberia has also activated flexible changes for travelers affected by the crash.

Dealing with Renfe’s website can be an adventure of its own; my guide to Renfe’s website problems discusses them and workarounds for making purchases.

How Do Spain’s Trains Compare with Other Countries?

Spain isn’t alone in having had terrible rail disasters: Germany’s Eschede derailment in 1998 killed 101 people, and Greece’s Tempi collision in 2023 killed 57. Here’s how the everyday risk compares:

• EU: about one rail passenger death for every 30 billion passenger-km (0.033 per billion), according to the EU railway agency. Spain’s normal-year record, about 0.03, is right in line.
• Germany: 0.035 deaths per billion passenger-km by rail versus 1.97 by car between 2008 and 2017, a 56-fold difference.
• UK: Britain goes almost every year without a single rail passenger death.
• US: per mile, people in cars and light trucks die at about 20 times the rate of train passengers and 1,200 times the rate of airline passengers (10-year average). In 2023, the US car-and-truck rate was 0.53 deaths per 100 million passenger-miles—about 3.3 per billion passenger-km, higher than the EU’s 2.5.

What About Driving, Buses, and Motorcycles?

• Cars: about 2.5 deaths per billion passenger-km in the EU. In Spain, 1,785 people died in road crashes in 2024, and in 2025, 531 people died in cars on intercity roads alone.
• Buses and coaches: about 0.24 deaths per billion passenger-km in the EU, roughly ten times safer than a car.
• Motorcycles: about 36 deaths per billion passenger-km, roughly 15 times the risk of a car. In terms of cost-benefit, that’s where I draw a line; I personally wouldn’t use motorcycles for regular transport or travel.

Is There a Safest Seat or Carriage on the Train?

In terms of safety, it really doesn’t matter much where you choose to sit. Accidents affect different parts of trains. At Adamuz, the rear carriages of the Iryo derailed and the front of the oncoming Alvia took the impact. At Urda, the rear carriages of the Iryo and the front of the AVE were hit. A seat that would be safer in one scenario is worse in another.

I choose my seat for comfort and the view (a window seat and on the side facing the sea if riding along a coast).

Why I’ll Keep Riding Spanish Trains—and Feel Safe Doing So

I’ve ridden Spanish trains for two decades, including high-speed trains, regular trains, and small regional ones. I love the experience. I’ve always felt safe and comfortable, and I’ve never had the sense that the trains were rickety or that the operation was haphazard. You do get a certain sense of awe when you’re passing along a high ridge or over a bridge, but the views are gorgeous.

I understand that after this crash, many people will feel differently about Spanish trains for a while. That’s human. A scandal is likely to erupt, and investigations will take place.

But in terms of our day-to-day decisions as riders and travelers, when we need to get from place to place we’re always taking a small risk. Even after a terrible 2026, Spanish trains remain one of the safest ways to go—far safer generally than getting in a car.

How I Calculated These Numbers

• Spain rail: passenger deaths in rail accidents and passenger-km for 2006–2025 come from Eurostat (tran_sf_railvi and rail_pa_total). Eurostat hasn’t published 2025 deaths yet, but the assumption is none, since there haven’t been reports of any.
• 2026: I counted 46 deaths at Adamuz and 69 at Urda (the official count as of October 29, which may rise), and estimated January–October passenger-km at about 30 billion, a little below the 2025 pace because high-speed ridership dropped after Adamuz. I counted everyone who died in both crashes as a passenger, which slightly overstates the passenger rate. Suicides and people struck while crossing tracks aren’t included; the figures are for passengers.
• High-speed lines specifically: all three disasters happened on long-distance trains, which carry roughly half of Spain’s rail passenger-km. My rough estimate for long-distance trains alone from 2013 through October 2026, based on Spanish railway yearbook figures, is about 0.9 deaths per billion passenger-km.
• Car, bus, and motorcycle: EU-27 rates for 2019 from the European Commission and the EU railway agency: 2.52 deaths per billion passenger-km for car occupants, 0.24 for bus and coach passengers, and 36.41 for motorcycles and other powered two-wheelers.
• Plane: IATA’s fatality risk, the chance of being killed per flight: 0.03 per million flights for European airlines in 2024 (zero in 2025). Plus about 34 km of taxi rides at the car rate.
• Distances: 621 km by high-speed train from Madrid Puerta de Atocha to Barcelona Sants, plus about 5 km of taxi rides. About 620 km by road from Puerta del Sol to Plaça de Catalunya.

Share Your Questions

If you’re weighing a specific trip and would like a second opinion, or if I’ve missed something, leave a comment below. I’ll update this article as official figures and the investigations develop.

Iryo, Renfe, safety, Spain, trains