‘An outrage’: Renfe’s fight to keep Iryo out of its workshops tests Spain’s rail liberalisation

SPAIN: State-backed operator RENFE is fighting to keep high speed rival Iryo out of its La Sagra maintenance depot despite an order from Spain’s competition regulator to do so. RENFE saying it will use ‘all means at its disposal’ to prevent what it calls an ‘outrage’ that could cost the national operator up to €60 million in lost revenue. But what does that mean for Spanish rail liberalisation? 

Spain may be opening up its high speed market on the tracks, but the workshop floor is proving harder to liberalise. Iryo, the Trenitalia-led challenger that has helped turn Spain into one of Europe’s most competitive high speed markets, is now fighting RENFE for access to the heavy-maintenance capacity needed to keep its iconic Frecciarossa 1000 fleet running in the Iberian Peninsula.

The dispute comes as Iryo’s trains move towards a major maintenance cycle requiring work on key components that the Italian-backed operator wants carried out at RENFE’s central Spanish La Sagra depot, rather than having to send its units abroad. However, RENFE is pushing back hard, contesting a ruling from Spain’s market regulator, the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC), ordering the state-backed incumbent to open the depot to its high speed rival.

Claiming that the decision could cost the company some €60 million, RENFE told Railway Gazette International that it was ‘complying with the decision’ as far as it was legally obligated to, but said La Sagra faced ‘real capacity constraints and critical equipment limitations’, stating that the national operator must ‘prioritise internal demand’ for its own fleet, particularly services subject to public-service obligations. But so far, keeping the challenger out of its depot has proven an uphill battle.

Why Iryo needs La Sagra

Since launching commercial services between Madrid and Barcelona in November 2022, Iryo has expanded dramatically in Spain. Majority-owned by Trenitalia, part of Italy’s state railway group FS, alongside Globalvia and Air Nostrum shareholders, the high speed operator has spread across Spain’s main high speed axes, including the Levante corridor and Andalusia, and now boasts 20 Frecciarossa 1000 units serving 11 domestic destinations with more than 400 weekly services.

But according to industry sources cited by el Economista, Iryo’s Frecciarossas are now nearing three million kilometres in service, the point at which they require a more extensive maintenance overhaul. While Iryo had access arrangements for lighter maintenance from launch, no package covering heavier work was ever formalised.

Iryo had planned to develop its own workshop capacity in Spain, but with profitability still a challenge for new open-access entrants, the operator currently remains dependent on third parties — that means RENFE — for level-two maintenance (the operator has since argued that ‘there has been enough time’ since liberalisation for private operators to invest in their own workshops rather than relying on the state operator’s facilities). Still, a heavy-maintenance arrangement had been under discussion between the two companies for around a year and a half. However, those talks recently broke down before a final agreement was signed, forcing Iryo to take the dispute to the Spanish authorities.

The deal that collapsed

Iryo first sought access to La Sagra in 2024, well ahead of heavy-maintenance work planned for 2026. RENFE initially rejected Iryo’s preferred model, under which the work would be carried out in self-provision inside the state-backed operator’s depot, but kept the door open to a more limited arrangement.

Under that model, RENFE would provide bogie maintenance services to Hitachi, Iryo’s train supplier and maintainer, while Iryo would receive separate access to La Sagra for the mounting and dismantling work around those components. RENFE had sent offers to both Hitachi and Iryo; Hitachi had signed its part, while Iryo’s parallel access agreement was still awaiting formal signature by the end of last year.

But at the 11th hour, RENFE management pulled the plug on the deal. In a letter to Iryo and Hitachi in late February, the operator said it could not assume the planned R2 heavy-maintenance activities, pointing to new pressures affecting its own rolling stock. It said its facilities were under additional strain and that work had to be reprogrammed to protect its own transport plan, effectively blocking Iryo from carrying out the work in Spain.

Why the market regulator intervened

Faced with the prospect of having to send its trains to Italy for R2 work, keeping each train out of service for at least two extra weeks, and the risk that delays could eventually force a significant part of its fleet out of service in 2027, it was unsurprising then that Iryo took the dispute to the Spanish authorities. And after considering the case for several weeks, in late March, the CNMC partly granted Iryo’s request for interim measures.

Iryo had sought a broader right to carry out full R2 heavy maintenance itself at La Sagra, or alternatively at RENFE’s Santa Catalina base; However, the CNMC instead ordered a narrower remedy focused on the bogie work at the centre of the dispute, calculating that Iryo’s fleet would occupy only roughly 7% of La Sagra’s total annual capacity.

Under the March 26 order, RENFE was required to give Hitachi access to La Sagra to remove and refit bogies on Iryo’s trains, while also providing the repair work itself. Alternatively, the operator could also choose to let Hitachi do the repairs itself, using RENFE’s space and equipment. But the regulator gave RENFE ten days to implement the measures.

No contract was ever signed and no obligation was generated for RENFE. It should be noted that RENFEis not legally required to provide heavy maintenance services to private operators.

RENFE’s counterattack

RENFE has since tried to stop the order before it bites. The operator went to Spain’s national court, Audiencia Nacional, for an urgent suspension and separately asked the CNMC to halt its own decision, but neither route has yet freed it from the obligation. The court refused to grant emergency relief without first hearing the other parties, while the CNMC said the March 26 order remained enforceable and could not simply be frozen because RENFE had challenged it.

Now under pressure to open the depot, RENFE told Railway Gazette International it was not ignoring the regulator, but contesting the measure through the proper channels and ‘defending its position before the relevant bodies’. The operator said the order required access to La Sagra ‘despite the existence of real capacity constraints and critical equipment limitations’, warning that those constraints ‘may have a direct impact on rolling stock availability and, consequently, on the provision of passenger services’.

Part of the problem is that RENFE disputes the CNMC’s assessment of the space Iryo would require. While the regulator calculated that the work would occupy roughly 7% of La Sagra’s annual capacity, Renfe argues that the figure understates the real effect because only a limited number of tracks can accommodate Iryo’s trains. On that basis, it says the effective occupation would rise above 10%, affecting its own maintenance plan.

Those capacity concerns relate directly to RENFE’s own fleet at La Sagra, including Series 103 high speed trains used on the Madrid–Barcelona corridor and Series 114 Avant units for public-service operations in Valladolid. RENFE claims the capacity allocation could cost it up to €60 million in lost revenue if it has to reduce the number of passenger seats available on its own services.

‘No contract was ever signed’

Then there is the legal question of whether the access rules go as far as the CNMC says they do. Spain’s railway rules require non-discriminatory access to essential facilities, but RENFE argues that this does not automatically create a duty to provide heavy-maintenance services to private competitors. In its view, Iryo’s request goes beyond ordinary facility access or standard self-provision because the work depends on limited depot space, specialist technical equipment and capacity already earmarked for RENF’s own operations.

The incumbent therefore maintains it is ‘not legally required to provide heavy maintenance services to private operators’. As for its commitments to Iryo, RENFE rejected the idea that the long-running talks created any firm legal duty, saying the discussions had been exploratory and that ‘no contract was ever signed and no obligation was generated for RENFE’.

No easy fallback

Iryo has not publicly answered RENFE’s defence. A source at Italy’s FS Group, Iryo’s majority shareholder through Trenitalia, told Railway Gazette International that the depot-access dispute is now in the hands of the CNMC, adding that ‘Iryo isn’t expressing a position on the issue for the time being’.

That silence does not make the stakes any smaller. If RENFE were ultimately heard, Iryo would be left trying to absorb heavier maintenance costs and tighter fleet availability in a market where new entrants are already operating on thin economics. More importantly, the CNMC has warned that delayed maintenance could eventually force a significant part of Iryo’s fleet out of service in 2027, putting pressure on its commitments on the Madrid – Barcelona, Madrid – Levante and Madrid – South corridors.

That risk is sharpened by the wider economics of Spain’s liberalised high speed market, where strong revenue growth has still not translated into consistent profitability. According to the CNMC, commercial passenger rail revenues reached €1.93 billion in 2024, up more than 20% compared with 2019, but costs rose faster, increasing by nearly 36% over the same period. Indeed, since the market opened, RENFE, Iryo and Ouigo have racked up around €1.2 billion in losses between them. RENFE accounted for €842 million of that total, as its market share fell by nearly 30 percentage points, while Iryo lost €170 million.

The depot dilemma

RENFE will use all means at its disposal to prevent this outrage, which jeopardises its daily operations and economic sustainability.

Maintenance has a direct effect on those numbers. If liberalisation is to work, new entrants need to make money on thin margins, which means keeping as much of their fleet in service as possible. For incumbents, that raises the harder question of how much workshop capacity, and therefore revenue-earning capacity, they should be expected to give up to support the expansion of a rival. That tension has become a recurring feature of European rail liberalisation, from the Channel Tunnel race over access to Eurostar’s Temple Mills depot in the UK to RENFE’s separate workshop-access fight with SNCF-backed Ouigo in Spain.

It is then unsurprising that RENFE is showing no signs of backing down. The national operator is continuing to petition the Spanish courts, framing the case as a defence of public service and its own financial survival. In a statement last week, RENFE said it ‘will use all means at its disposal to prevent this outrage, which jeopardises its daily operations and economic sustainability’. Thus, the upcoming court ruling will show how much the state-backed operator is expected to give up to make liberalisation work in its own backyard.

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