Conferencia de José Luis López Gómez: "40 años en Talgo". 23 de octubre de 2021.

The gauges we're talking about are about 15 percent wider than the standard European high-speed gauge we have in Spain and the rest of Europe, which is 1,435 millimeters. Then there's the Iberian gauge at 1,668 millimeters, and the Russian gauge at 1,520 millimeters. In Spain, we talk about these two gauges, and in Europe, we talk about three. As you can see, the Spanish-Portuguese gauge is wider than the Russian and wider than the European standard.

If you have questions, we'll try to address them. Well, here's the point—the changes I've seen. I've needed more, and there will be many more, but so you can get an idea: everyone has wanted to make gauge changes. It's so much so that first we have those of us in Spain—CAF and Talgo—and then these are marked with more emphasis. There are others, but what impressed me most was that the wheels are inclined and rotate on an axis. When the axis is horizontal, they're aligned, but what they do is rotate the axis and the mass, so the narrow part of the wheel faces up and down, allowing the train to run on a different track gauge.

This is a logical form—we have to acknowledge the others are good, but not as good as what we're doing right now. With over 2,000 gauge changes, 2,000 axle changes—we're the ones who do the most. We put ourselves among the best, and that's why we haven't had a single accident since 1968 as a consequence of gauge change. I'm very proud of that.

The Talgo gauge-change system is very simple. As you can see, when it arrives at a gauge changer, there are red locks that lower, and when the locks lower, the wheels shift. Then they go back up and lock into place so there's no way they can move. But the real novelty I can explain is the new gauge changer where the train passes through while in motion. It slides onto these extreme tracks and the wheels are unloaded. When they reach the next position, the locks engage, the wheels are pushed laterally, they slide into position, and then they're in the right gauge. It works exactly the same in both directions.

The first passenger trip to Paris was in 1967, on the Talgo. In France, they made more than 180 test runs because they had a certain impression—the Spanish technology seemed very antiquated to them. After so many test runs and verifying everything was going well, someone disconnected something, and they had to pull the emergency brake. All the wheels started dragging. One of our drivers, who was a poet, said: 'There's what you treated us to—gliding smoothly into France, and coming back jumping like a kangaroo, because with the wheels dragging, it was unbearable.' Here you can see in Paris Minister Silva Muñoz and the driver, who was a great driver and a wonderful person.

One of the things we took great care with was the wheel and rail profiles. We even manufactured our own gauges to measure and guarantee control of the rail profiles. They told us the moment activity dropped below tolerance, the train wouldn't move. We mastered it and achieved what we needed.

The train was part of the Transeuropa Expres group—the best European clubs. It entered service on May 21, 1969. Before the day was fifteen minutes old, the gauge change in France had already malfunctioned. A piece of plastic got stuck and wouldn't allow the gauge change. One of the French controllers ran to the control booth and pulled the lever—'Now it's fallen, it's fallen, it's fallen.' They pulled the stop cord. Everyone wanted to prevent Talgo from entering France, but it had already entered from Spain.

As for anecdotes—the Talgo locomotive was tested for three years and there was only one incident. There were very low temperatures and a control element in the transmission got blocked. The driver tried to start it but couldn't. When they finally got it moving and he was leaving the station, the warm temperature reconnected things. The driver, who was a smoker, took his lighter and threw it out the window. He told the mechanic: 'Now I'm going to spend three months without smoking.' That shows the dedication they had for doing things right.

The distance control between active axles—when we started, they checked every single day. After they saw everything was consistently maintained, they relaxed to monthly checks, and eventually they let us do it our own way and just accepted our data.

The train was a Transeuropa Expres with tremendous service quality. The dining was so excellent that many passengers would ride just for the meal and get off at the other end. One day, they needed to fly in chickens from Barajas airport because they wanted to maintain that quality, but the chickens didn't arrive in time. The chef, Mr. Cecilio, stayed up all night trying to fix the burned chickens. The next day, when the food was served, he received more compliments than ever. A good chef who could handle anything.

Another thing that I've always liked—people called us 'the silent train.' Noise reduction was one of the things we were most careful about.

Now moving on to tilting and banking. There are two systems: first the basculación and then the vinculación. What Talgo does with its tilting system is: when the train enters a curve, since the suspension follows the upper part of the cars and the center of gravity is lower, it tilts toward the interior of the curve, thereby reducing the centrifugal force felt by passengers.

Portugal and others all have tilting systems. What they do is take into account the train's speed, the curve radius, and its position, trying to reduce centrifugal force to one meter per second squared. But when that system fails, it hasn't gone very well because in most places it gets disabled—the data is wrong or they're missing some information. In the case of our passive tilting, there's no calculation involved. Physics works the same for the Germans as for everyone. We have the centrifugal force that pushes us, and we use that to counteract the lateral force.

In those years, we started applying new technologies—advanced welding, quality manufacturing improvements. Here you can see the pendular system, and if you look carefully, you can see the locomotive doesn't have tilting while the cars do—their bodies are visibly more inclined.

When technology from Germany works, it always makes you proud. Regarding the goal of '92, we started all these matters including workshop certification. There's an anecdote about the department—trains were departing Berlin, and a very nervous lady was at customs with four or six officers in front of her. She said there were two packages of coffee. Another man stood there and said nothing. A policeman came in and told the officers to take her packages. The lady left upset. When the train started, the policeman ran after it and caught up. He handed her the four packages he'd managed to keep from being confiscated. She ended up happier than ever.

Those were the constant smuggling stories and life around the railways—it was like that everywhere in the world.

Now, one of the things I also wanted to talk about: this machine—the rail grinder. The advances in technology that have mattered most—any of us could publish on this. We lack a Venezuelan saying: 'If you have a Mercedes but the road is full of potholes...' For me, one of the biggest technological advances was the rail rectification system—the ability to grind the rails to such precision that it enables higher speeds.

Here we see wheels equipped with strain detection systems. With these wheels, we can directly measure on the computer the contact forces between wheel and rail. We can reach speeds of 400 kilometers per hour and observe the force exerted on the track. If the force is correct, we can increase speed further.

This has surprised me. Well, it's getting late. One thing I want to show—I'm fascinated by this: the contact surface of a truck with seven tons of weight is just the tiny contact patch of its tires. One day a truck came by while I was preparing for this presentation. I took a rope, laid it on the ground to mark the truck's contact area, and compared it to the wheel-rail contact. This is the wheel profile we always aim for. The displacement force is six to ten times greater on rail compared to road. That's why I believe we should do more promotion of trains for transport and energy savings.

Here's something few people in schools get right when I ask this question: a car at 200 passes to 150 kilometers per hour—which part of the car was stationary? The part in contact with the road—the tire contact patch—was stationary, because otherwise we'd see evidence of it. That's clear. The car body, the motor, the interior—all moving at 130 or 150. But the part that's stopped is the part touching the ground. And that's true at any speed. There's no material that can sustain that. So with that tendency, it's the same as being stopped. Ten wheels with locked brakes—it's all the same.

Then you have to maintain the road or the track, and you have to set limits—a ton, two tons, five tons. On high-speed rail, the limit is set at a maximum of 17 tons per axle—seven tons per wheel—because otherwise the track couldn't be maintained. But indeed, that's how the limits are. You can't exceed 17 tons regardless of the conditions.

Now, the other secret—the one we work with—is what we call the world's secret, which is the right rail. Adhesion is key: if you have one ton over a single point and want to move it, you need to prevent it from digging in and changing the crossing. You need the weight distributed over the contact surfaces. The fact that the surface is large or small depends fundamentally on the hardness of the materials, not on the surface area.

This is the Munich test bench where they tested the cars. Here I want to tell a story about when we were doing tests in this same facility. They were testing the bogies, and the head of the test bench stopped at 450 kilometers per hour. But that's not the issue—it's that those passes were at 450. We were trying to explain that brake discs are made of steel, there's nothing that can centrifuge, and finally when we passed 450... then we reached 500. The man realized things were going well and allowed the tests to continue at 500 kilometers per hour. It was reported in the German press: 'Spain achieves 500 kilometers per hour.' You can't imagine my joy. The first thing I did was call Spain—we've reached 500! Today I'd have to check to be sure.

These were the tests in Germany, because in Spain at that time you couldn't exceed 300. We reached 356 kilometers per hour—I have that very clearly recorded. We were at 356, and all the local German technicians were there following the tests. When we reached 356, they came with champagne. It was wonderful. The head of German testing, who was known for being demanding, said I looked downcast. I told him: 'In Spain they've reached 357, and we're stuck at 356.' The next day, he said they would do everything possible except tamper with the data—and we reached 360 kilometers per hour.

Let me talk about energy consumption, which is worth understanding. Our consumption: 5.82 grams of diesel per seat-kilometer, which equals 0.7 liters per 100 kilometers. There was a discussion because the French SNCF TGV was consuming 11—we guaranteed 0.7. This was because Talgo is the lightest, with guided wheels that cross without touching the flange. This was all demonstrated. It's a way of promoting rail. 0.7 liters per 100 kilometers—and what do we consume in a car? Just look at the difference. If we want to talk aviation, an airplane consumes around 2 liters per 100. So: 0.7 for train, 2.5 for a car—I don't need to say more.

This is the situation of gauge changers in Spain. The blue lines are high-speed tracks and the others are Iberian gauge tracks.

One of the last things we did was go to Moscow. Here I am with the minister, the president, at the inauguration. Despite being retired, the Russian government awarded me the Agustín Betancourt Medal—a Spanish engineer held in such high regard in Russia that they give his medal for technological advances. It was a great honor.

With all these iron protections, we perform the gauge change. There are still trains that lift the cars and change the gauge using lifting mechanisms. And this is the first day with wider cars thanks to a patent—the cars can be made wider and you can fit three seats. It seemed like a small thing, but it was brilliant. Three plus two—if you remove the center seat, you can carry multiple items, whereas before you could only carry one. It's been very important.

The pit lathes—I also wanted to talk about lathes for turning wheels. We sell lathes, and I had planned to explain how they work. Well, thank you very much. Any questions now?

I can't tell you for certain whether it will happen, but something is something. What does seem clear is that the form is defined—it will be high-speed. High-speed communication with no short distances between stations, so if it's not high-speed it doesn't make sense.

Any questions? Yes, go ahead... Forty-two services per Oriol—so the first sale... It was in Madrid, but the engineer was Basque. The service was also more expensive—it was the premium option. When we were working on getting things established, the base at Las Matas started operating in 2000.

More questions? I had planned that when I get a question, if you think I did well, you applaud. If not, you leave. Also, I've put papers here with train information for anyone who wants to buy a train—I've put brochures here in case anyone wants to find out where to go to purchase one.

Regarding hydrogen—it's the most advanced technology right now. Talgo is going to implement it. These things never come early; if anything, they're a bit delayed. It's very well planned. It's scheduled for January as the first implementation. Hydrogen is a product of its own project—it requires a technology that's safe. You have to store it at 700 atmospheres, or alternatively at 250, but at 250 you need much more volume, so the tendency is toward 700. There are also gas alternatives, but it has to be a very safe technology. The advances must be safe.

One thing I insist on: it doesn't make sense to talk about hydrogen and not talk about wind turbines or generators without fossil fuels. The future also depends on understanding nuclear power—if there were nuclear plants, hydrogen would be assured.

About the Vicente incident—there was a derailment. Finally, it was clearly due to excessive speed. That's clear. You could ask: shouldn't the signal have been in front of the curve instead of after it? But the fault was the speed. The problem is who sets the speed—in this case it was the drivers, and there's no way around it. In high-speed systems, there's the RTS—it automatically takes control if the driver sets a speed higher than the limit for that section, and won't let him manipulate the train.

The dead man's switch—I'll tell you the story from the first locomotive in Spain. When I was presenting it to the president of Renfe, the indicator was always showing, and if a fault is committed, you press it and the alarm sounds. It announced: 'Station 1, Station 1' and told the president: 'Give me eight days.' It said this with urgency because a government had just changed and the new minister was walking toward the president. The dead man's switch—if the driver has a fainting spell and doesn't move a pedal, it's a system where any control element—if you move it, the clock keeps running, but if you go 45 seconds without moving an element, the dead man's switch triggers and brakes automatically.

Imagine a train at 300 kilometers per hour—a normal train stops in five kilometers. But that day it's raining, and if the track is wet, it needs seven kilometers. The RTS calculates everything. If the driver doesn't start braking until two kilometers before the five-kilometer mark, the system has already taken over and the driver is useless—it automatically initiates the programmed stop.

I should mention Miguel Carranza—we should have named this place after him. He was one of the people who has done the most for the railway, who has informed most about it. He was from Seville, and we had many meetings with him here. I remember him with great affection and fondness. I don't like this business of the oligarch distinction. He was our godfather, and thanks to him we met here.

José Luis López Gómez, for his professional dedication and as one of Spain's references to the world... I'm deeply grateful.

Starting with the land, many things also... the topic... in the CPI, but those who don't give a living video... The pity is that I'm not capable of writing documents—those serious ones take me so much time. What I'd like is for people who know and want to and like to write to write the real history of Spain. It's always the English writing about us, and each one has their own version.

I almost forgot—when they were carrying smuggling goods on one of the trains leaving Madrid, someone was bringing rabbits for a relative. The police officer... a good man with a violin case... The police officer tells him: 'Well, you'll have to keep the heads because the ears are showing!'

Thank you very much!