By late October 2026, the wreckage of two high-speed trains lay scattered across a rural embankment in the Spanish province of Toledo, marking the epicentre of a national trauma. The collision between a state-owned Renfe AVE train and a privately operated Iryo train left 69 people dead and more than 100 injured, paralyzing Europe’s most extensive high-speed rail network. The Spanish government swiftly attributed the catastrophe to an "inexplicable" human error by a lone traffic controller.