Transportation System by Rail, Case Study Example

Abstract

This paper looks at the rail transportation system serving the Capital City of Madrid in Spain. The summary is split into three parts (i) Introduction to the Madrid railway system (ii) How the system is utilized by the public and (iii) Examination of terrorist attacks carried out on the system and the impact to the public.

Introduction

RENFE  (La Red de los Ferrocarriles Españoles) is the Spanish national rail train service.” Atocha is the largest and most used train station. It is close to the city center.  Long distance trains arrive into a modern station inside the old one, which is called ‘Puerta de Atocha ”  (softguide Madrid).  Atocha is one of the largest commuter train stations in Madrid as it connects with the underground rail system. It is widely used on a daily basis by workers of urban areas who have day jobs working in the capital.  It is a high speed electrified rail passenger system with a large throughput of rail passengers particularly in peak travel times.

How the public utilize the system

Although Atocha station connects other regional centres in Spain and other European destinations, it is primarily a commuter station for workers in Central Madrid.  During peak times thousands of commuters utilize the service and pour into Central Madrid, connecting with the underground station in order to reach their work destinations.  In this sense it may be compared with the London railway network that operates on a similar basis.  People equally utilize the service in the evenings in order to return to urban dwellings. Hence the station has a rush hour in the early morning and after office closure hours in the evenings.

Al Qaida Terrorist attack

The Madrid train bombings were carried out on 11th March 2004 and just 3 days before the Spanish General Election.  The result of the bomb explosions killed 191 people and wounded 1800 more civilians.  The attacks being the result of an Al Qaida terrorist network. The explosions took place around 7.40 am in the morning designed to have maximum impact with the commuters travelling to Madrid.  ” The victims, while mainly from Spain, came from no less than 17 different countries. The Basque terrorist group ETA were blamed initially, but the official investigation concluded that the attack was by Islamist extremists.”  (go madrid).

The Basque extremist group ETA were the immediate suspects and blamed for the attack given the history of previous violent acts and abortive attempts to conduct an attack on this scale of destruction ” They had some circumstantial evidence on their side. Eta had previously put a bomb on a train and had a huge consignment of explosives intercepted en route to Madrid recently, it was pointed out.”  (Reynolds). The true identity of the Islamic connection to Al Qaida was a wake up call to Europe of the threat posed by this terrorist group.   It raised the question of how tough should government be on acts of terrorism ” The tactics of how to wage a war on terrorism are already dividing American society in its election year. In Europe, there are even more doubts. So, does a government gain electorally by being militant or by being pacifist?”  (Reynolds).  The UK Foreign Secretary was quoted as saying ‘ better to be tough now than be blamed later’.

Works Cited

Go madrid. Atocha Train Station. 2010. 8 7 2010 <http://www.gomadrid.com/transport/atocha.html>.

Reynolds, Paul. Europe: Facing up to al-Qaeda reality. 14 3 2004. 8 7 2010 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3511180.stm>.

Softguide Madrid. Trains in Madrid. 2010. 8 7 2010 <http://www.softguides.com/madrid_guide/transport/trains.html>.