Photographer Finds Crucial Train Part Linked to Spain Train Crash

In the nearly two days since a high-speed train crash in southern Spain, investigators have focused on whether a fault in the track could be to blame for the derailment of a northbound train that swerved into the path of an oncoming southbound train, resulting in a devastating collision that killed at least 42 people. But on Tuesday, the emergence of a previously unreported train undercarriage — half submerged in a stream flowing through a steep-sided gully 900 feet from the railway — gave experts a potential new clue about what caused the crash. The hulking piece of debris, seen by a photographer for The New York Times on Tuesday afternoon, was not marked or cordoned off by government investigators and had not previously been disclosed by officials. When shown images and maps locating the undercarriage on Tuesday, police officers assisting the investigation in Adamuz, a town in southern Spain near the city of Córdoba, first said they had been looking for it, and later said they knew about it, but could not comment on an ongoing investigation. ADIF, a state-owned authority that manages much of Spain’s rail infrastructure, said on Tuesday evening that the part had been located by investigators, but did not respond to a question about when it was found. The Times was not able to confirm which train it came from, whether it landed there on Sunday, or how it got there.