Renfe retira dos nuevos trenes de Talgo por dudas sobre el estado de los 'bogies'

Renfe, the Spanish state-owned railway operator, has removed Talgo's new high-speed trains from service due to concerns over the condition of their bogies. The issue arose after the operator discovered more flaws in the Series 106 trains purchased from Talgo in 2016, which had already been experiencing problems since their deployment in 2024. Renfe originally ordered 30 high-speed trains for €2 billion from Talgo in 2016, but the company is now facing mounting criticism over the recurring issues with the trains.

In the summer of 2025, Renfe retired five of the Series 106 trains from service due to bogie cracks on the Avril platform, a Madrid-Barcelona line operated by Avlo. In August of that year, two more branches of the same train were sent to workshops following further anomalies. Renfe has since stated that they will keep any train in question off the rails until it passes strict technical controls, and will only authorize its operation once it has cleared these checks.

The operator has once again called for Talgo, a consortium-controlled Spanish-Portuguese manufacturer, to take responsibility for the ongoing issues.

Talgo has acknowledged that the problems are not limited to the Madrid-Barcelona corridor and may be unrelated to the condition of the infrastructure. The manufacturer continues to investigate the root cause of the defect, which initially was attributed to poor infrastructure. Renfe and Talgo have jointly developed a control and monitoring plan for the Series 106 trains, but so far, this has only helped in detecting the issues rather than resolving them.

Currently, Renfe has requested Talgo to delve deeper into the cause of the problem, determine its extent, and implement all necessary technical measures to ensure the reliability of the bogies currently in service.

As part of the agreement reached between Renfe and Talgo, the latter has agreed to pay for the €116 million fine in installments and to repair the Series 106 trains to ensure that all 30 units have swappable wheels. Talgo has conducted additional checks on the bogies using extensometer tests, with initial results being positive.

Further tests will be carried out in specialized laboratories to finalize their validation. These guarantees and possible improvements also extend to the S107 series, whose components are equivalent, according to Renfe.