Spanish Train Inquiry Focuses on Driver With a Taste for Speed

ANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain — A veteran train driver with a zest for speed was arrested in his hospital room in northwest Spain where investigators are trying to determine whether reckless behavior caused a train wreck that left dozens of passengers dead, the authorities said Friday. Imagine what a rush it would be traveling alongside the Civil Guard, and passing them so that their speed traps go off,” he wrote, in all capitals. “Hehe, that would be quite a fine for Renfe, hehe,” referring to his employer, the Spanish rail company.

Now that train driver, Francisco José Garzón Amo, a veteran with more than three decades of experience, is under investigation by a judge in connection with one of Europe’s worst rail accidents in recent years.

In a chilling video from a security camera, the passenger train he was driving rounded a curve at high speed on Wednesday night, tumbling violently off the track, slamming against a curved wall and piling up in a twisted wreck. Eighty people were killed.

On Thursday, Spanish news media reported that the driver had said the train’s speed had been about 120 miles per hour, more than double the limit in the stretch of track where the train derailed. On the day of the wreck, he took over from another driver just 60 miles before the crash, according to Spanish news reports.

The train was almost full, carrying more than 200 passengers and merrymakers returning to the region for a special holiday on Thursday. July 25 is the feast day for St. James the Apostle, the patron saint of Spain, who for centuries has inspired pilgrims to walk El Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James. The pilgrimage has had a burst of popularity in recent years, drawing walkers from around the world.

After the crash, the city of Santiago de Compostela canceled its extensive celebration and the authorities urged people to donate blood. Thousands made a very different kind of pilgrimage to the site of the disaster, watching as rescuers used cranes and trucks to hoist the engines of the wrecked train. All — children, teenagers and older people — stood in funereal silence.

Nearby, in a building where an information center had been set up, police officers kept the victims’ families from the public eye. Some walked around the building in tears, hugging and comforting one another, while others grew frustrated waiting to see their loved ones.

“Now, at 9:30 p.m., is when they allowed us to go and see our family member,” said María, a relative of a victim who did not want her full name used. “Twenty-four hours waiting, in these conditions. That’s too much.”

Most high-speed lines that are part of the European rail traffic system are covered by a GPS-based surveillance network that constantly monitors trains’ speed and automatically brakes them at speed limits.

Slower trains and trains crossing urban areas in Spain and other countries use a less intrusive system that warns the driver with sound and lights at excessive speeds, but does not automatically brake the train, according to María Carmen Palao, a spokeswoman for Spain’s ADIF rail infrastructure company.

The accident, she said, took place two to three miles outside the station at Santiago de Compostela, in the “transition zone” between the two systems. The wreck occurred on the Galicia line, run by the rail operator Renfe and opened in 2011.

The train’s driver survived the accident with light injuries and is under police guard, although he has not been formally arrested. He is “lucid and able to speak,” said Carmen Prieto, a spokeswoman for the Spanish Development Ministry.

The Spanish newspaper El País reported that people at the train company said that alcohol had not been found in the driver’s system, but the security video showing the train barreling into the turn and abruptly careening off the rails quickly raised concerns that he was traveling too fast.

Even in his Facebook message, posted in 2012 but removed late Thursday morning, Mr. Garzón elicited some astounded comments from friends.

“Dude, you’re going full speed, braaaaake,” one commenter wrote.

“Christ, you’re doing 200km/h,” another said.

Outpourings of sympathy for Wednesday’s disaster came from all corners, including the White House. “On behalf of the American people, we offer our deepest sympathies and condolences,” President Obama said in a statement. The State Department confirmed Thursday that one American died and five were injured in the accident.

In a letter to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, said he was “deeply saddened” by the accident. “Such a serious accident, with so many people dead and injured, is a tragedy for Spain and provokes such deep emotions,” he said.

Mr. Rajoy, who was born in the region, visited the scene and declared three days of official mourning. King Juan Carlos and his wife, Sofía, also rushed to Santiago de Compostela.

“In the face of a tragedy such as just happened in Santiago de Compostela on the eve of its big day, I can only express my deepest sympathy as a Spaniard and a Galician,” Mr. Rajoy said in a written statement.

The eight-car train, which left Madrid at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, was traveling to the coast when it derailed around 8:44 p.m., according to the clock on the security video. Witnesses described the destruction as the dead were taken to a temporary morgue. “The road is full of cadavers,” a radio reporter, Xaime López, said on the station Cadena Ser. “It’s striking: you almost can’t even count them.”

The accident was Spain’s worst train crash since 1972, when 86 people were killed in the southwest of the country.