Antonio Acedo Meneses, aged 36, was driving the Renfe AVE that collided with a stationary Iryo train on the tracks this Wednesday in Toledo. He died in the cabin. With the other train ahead, his last decision was to brake with all his might to save as many people as possible.
It was 08:54 hours on 28 October, at kilometre point 118 on the Madrid-Sevilla line. According to the first known data, no one warned him that the Iryo was still stopped. When he saw it ahead, he desperately activated the emergency brake to reduce speed as much as possible before the impact.
This gesture is what half of Spain remembers today. More than 500 passengers were on board the two trains. The tributes that have multiplied since Wednesday all agree on the same point: even knowing the danger, Antonio tried to brake with all means to save as many lives as possible. For his colleagues, for many travellers, and for those who knew him, Antonio Acedo is the driver who saved hundreds of lives. One of the most shared farewells sums it up in a few words: a hero and a great professional.
He did not have that opportunity. Being on the front line, at the nose of a train colliding head-on with another, left minimal hopes from the start. His loved ones spent hours waiting for confirmation that arrived on Thursday. The cabin also housed the trainee driver David Cabañas, who also did not survive.
Three generations on the tracks
Antonio did not come to the train by chance. He was born in Móstoles in 1990, the son of a train driver and the grandson of a Renfe electrician, and grew up always close to the railway. In 2012, he began his studies to become a driver, a path that led him to live in Barcelona.
He had a different way of looking at the tracks. He was a photographer, and among his series are The Life of the Train Driver I and Landscapes from the Train (Origin), born in 2016 during his AVE journeys between Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia. He photographed the country from a place that almost no one occupies: the driver's seat.
He was also concerned about the safety of what he drove. He had warned of maintenance issues, funding, and the deterioration of railway infrastructures, and collaborated in the transport programme of Izquierda Española, the party of which he was a member. The party dismissed him with a message that many repeat today: “Antonio was an exceptional person, a good, prudent, and committed man.” Its founder, Guillermo del Valle, described him as someone “prudent, kind, and exemplary.”
Those who knew him speak of a person who improves the places he passes through, of a generosity that leaves a mark. On Wednesday, that generosity was encapsulated in a single hand movement on the brake.
Spain is observing three days of official mourning these days. The investigation will determine what went wrong on the tracks and how much that braking impacted the final balance. For hundreds of families who can embrace their loved ones today, the answer already has a name.
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