There is a grim, almost theatrical predictability to the way modern infrastructure collapses. It is never a sudden, thunderous act of God, despite what the insurance adjusters might claim in their frantic attempts to avoid liability. No, it is usually a slow, banal erosion of standards, a crumbling retaining wall here, a skipped maintenance check there, all culminating in the inevitable moment when physics collects its due. In Spain, physics has collected with a vengeance this week, claiming 46 lives and prompting the sort of reactive panic that only bureaucracy can produce.

The Spanish train drivers’ union, SEMAF, has called for a three-day nationwide strike. One can almost hear the collective groan of the commuters from here—the frantic checking of watches, the sighing over missed meetings and delayed coffees. But let us be painfully clear about the impetus for this labor action. This is not a dispute over holiday pay or the quality of the cafeteria sandwiches. The drivers are striking because they would prefer not to die at work. It is a terrifyingly low bar for labor relations in a developed European nation, yet here we are, staring at the twisted metal in Andalucía and Catalonia and wondering when exactly "surviving the commute" became a luxury add-on.

The specifics of the incidents are the stuff of nightmares, rendered all the more horrific by their banality. In Andalucía, near Adamuz, two trains collided. The death toll there has crept upward with the agonizing slowness of a bureaucratic audit, rising from 43 to 45 as recovery teams sifted through the wreckage. Meanwhile, in Catalonia, near Gelida, a driver was killed and dozens injured because a retaining wall collapsed. A wall. A pile of stones and cement whose sole existential purpose is to stay upright, failed in its only duty. In the year 2024, we are debating the ethics of artificial intelligence, yet we cannot seem to master the ancient technology of "stacking rocks so they don't fall on the train."

It is entirely fitting, in a macabre sense, that it takes a body count of nearly fifty to trigger a conversation about safety standards. This is the European way, is it not? We pride ourselves on our high-speed networks, our sleek AVEs that slice through the countryside like silver bullets, projecting an image of modernity and efficiency. But scratch the surface, or in this case, let a wall fall down, and you find the rot. You find the cost-cutting measures, the deferred maintenance, the administrative lethargy that treats passenger safety as a variable in a spreadsheet rather than a moral absolute.

The union’s demand is for measures to "guarantee the safety of rail workers and passengers." One has to appreciate the absurdity of having to demand this. It implies that, until this week, safety was merely a suggestion, a nice-to-have feature provided the budget allowed for it. The strike is not an act of aggression; it is a desperate attempt to force the operators—Renfe and Adif—to acknowledge that their machinery has turned into a meat grinder. The fact that the workers must shut down the entire national network to make this point is a scathing indictment of the management culture that allowed these disasters to occur.

Naturally, the political class will now enter the stage, dressed in their finest mournful expressions. There will be inquiries. There will be committees formed to study the committees that were supposed to be studying the tracks. They will speak of "tragedy" as if these crashes were meteor strikes, unpredictable and unavoidable. But a retaining wall does not collapse without warning; it collapses after years of neglect. Two trains do not collide on a modern network unless the systems designed to keep them apart have failed—either mechanically or procedurally. To call this a tragedy is to absolve the guilty. This is negligence, plain and simple, dressed up in the sombre attire of state mourning.

So, as the trains grind to a halt for three days, the public will be inconvenienced. They will complain about the disruption to their routines. But perhaps, as they stand on the silent platforms, they might spare a thought for the 46 people who paid the ultimate price for the state’s incompetence. The strike is the only language the bureaucracy understands: the cessation of commerce. It is a pity that it takes a pile of bodies to start the conversation, but in the crumbling theater of European infrastructure, the show seemingly cannot go on until the actors refuse to take the stage.