Alstom and Renfe blame each other over delay to 201-train order
SPAIN: Alstom and Renfe are publicly blaming each other for the delay to a EUR 1.8bn order of 201 commuter trains. Alstom says it never promised to deliver the first two Serie 452 trains in June — only to finish building them. Renfe says no trains have arrived at all, and the fleet still needs safety approval before it can run.
The dispute follows a report by El Español/Invertia on 6 July, citing Alstom sources, that the two lead units had finished industrial production and left the Santa Perpètua de Mogoda plant in Catalonia during June.
Alstom submitted the homologation dossier to the safety agency in May; only the authorisation itself remains outstanding. Renfe’s statement did not dispute that manufacturing had been completed — only that any train had arrived at the operator.
The order covers 201 six-car, mixed single/double-deck Coradia Stream units across two contracts signed in 2021 and 2022, worth a combined EUR 1.8bn, destined for the Cercanías networks in Madrid, Barcelona and Andalusia.
Alstom’s remaining 2026 commitment is 16 units delivered by year-end — a pace well short of the three to four trains a month originally required to meet the contract schedule. Transport Minister Óscar Puente noted in March that roughly 70 of the 111 trains under the first contract would already have been delivered had Alstom kept to its original terms.
A pattern of slippage
The Serie 452 delays sit alongside other recent production problems at Alstom’s Barcelona plant, including misaligned components and bogie durability issues identified during testing. Stadler, which is building the parallel Serie 453 batch for the same renewal programme, has already begun homologating its trains on the Cercanías Madrid network — ahead of its French competitor on the same tender family.