The train driver leaves the passengers at the end of his working hours

The 150 passengers on the Spanish train from Madrid to Leon are still angry. 32 minutes before arrival, the train stopped as scheduled at Sahagun station. But minutes passed without the train moving. This made the passengers impatient. Eventually, they learned that their train was no longer running. Reason: The train driver came out after finishing his working hours.

The incident happened a week ago on Thursday. Spanish newspaper “El Mundo” reports that the train driver now has the full support of the union. “He acted right. His useful working hours are past.”

Javier Garcia sits on the train and is still enraged by the incident. As he told the “Cronica” newspaper, the train staff did not inform the people on the train that the train was no longer running. He discovered it by chance when he stopped for a smoke at Sahagun. Suddenly the board on the platform read “Train journey canceled due to overtime of driver”. “It's surreal,” says Javier Garcia.

The zonal manager of the railway company was also shocked. After reporting the incident to headquarters, the company organized three buses for the passengers after 9 p.m., who were due to arrive in Lyon at 8:58 p.m. Javier Garcia and the others finally reached their destination at 11:40 p.m.—almost three hours late.

A spokesman for the Railway Employees Union said the case was clear: “Effective working hours are regulated by law. Five-and-a-half hours, 45 minutes of rest, and another three hours of driving,” he says. If the train driver had an accident on the rest of the route between Sahagun and Lyon, he would have been sent to jail. “You run the risk of something happening.”