35 dead in Spanish train derailement

Saw a news article in my Sunday paper that said the driver was being charged with manslaughter and has refused to talk to police. Also that the accident occured in an area where the "tracks change from high speed to normal speed".

Some additional information;

The photograph on the Driver's Facebook page shows a speed of 200kph, not 200 mph. This speed is allowed on the High-Speed segments of his territory. So it is not speeding.

The train is an Alvia S-730 hybrid which was converted from a Standard All electric S-130 model so that it can operate over non-electrified trackage. This was done by adding a diesel module right behind each electric powercar. In the accident it is the diesel module that cannot take the curve at the excessive speed the train was moving and first rolls the Talgo coaches over and then the electric powercar. Also the heavy diesel module stops quickly once its on the ground and the light Talgo coaches begin vaulting over it.

It is now known than the operator of high speed train that crashed got called by Spanish state Railway (RENFE) at moment of crash. The driver was being instructed on his last part of trip via company GSM (cellphone)

Starting to look more like bad judgement and unfortunate timing , rather than deliberate overspeeding. At 200kph, 5 k.m would be traveled in less than 2 minutes .

As of 55 minutes ago the Associated Press has said that the spanish court, after an examination of the black boxes, now want the person the driver was talking to because they were talking when the crash happened. They are also reporting the speed was 119mph(192kph) and that section was only good for 50mph(80kph). I'd say he was going a tad fast.

Documentary on the event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g0xyPkzv4A" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;