Investigators probing the Spanish rail disaster are focusing on the key question of why the train was going so fast.

One of the drivers of a Spanish train which derailed killing at least 80 people allegedly joked on Facebook on a previous occasion about speeding past police.

The driver of a Spanish train was taken into custody in hospital last night after at least 80 people died when it derailed and caught fire in a crash which was reportedly caused by excessive speed.

A Spanish train that hurtled off the rails and smashed into a security wall as it rounded a bend was going so fast that carriages tumbled off the tracks like dominos, killing 80 people and maiming dozens more, according to eyewitness accounts and video footage obtained today.

Spanish investigators were today trying to find out why a passenger train jumped the tracks and sent eight cars crashing into each other killing at least 77 people and injuring more than 140.

Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy is heading to the scene of the crash in north-western Spain that killed 77 people in one of the country’s worst rail accidents in decades.

At least 77 people have been killed and more than 100 injured as a passenger train derailed in north-western Spain, according to reports.

Up to 56 people have been killed after a passenger train derailed on a high-speed stretch of track in north-western Spain last night, according to reports.

At least 35 people have been killed in a train derailment in Spain, according to officials.

At least 24 people are reported to have died after a Spanish train derailed, toppling passenger cars on their sides and leaving at least one torn open as smoke rose into the air.

A train travelling in north-eastern Spain has derailed, toppling passenger cars on their sides and leaving at least one torn open as smoke rose into the air.

Hundreds of Spanish train services were cancelled today, resulting in traffic jams on roads into Madrid and Barcelona, as railway and subway workers staged strikes in protest at wage cuts and reforms.

Two people jumped into the sea and died as they fled a raging wildfire in north-eastern Spain, where flames fanned by strong winds also forced the closure of one the main roads linking Spain and France.

Spanish officials have blamed summer solstice partygoers for crossing the tracks into the path of an express train that crashed into and killed at least 13 people

A TRAIN ploughed into a group of youngsters taking a shortcut to a Spanish beach party, killing at least 12 of them.

A train ploughed into a group of youngsters taking a short cut to a Spanish beach party killing at least 12 of them.

Yesterday's derailment of a train carrying hundreds of passengers in northern Spain killed at least six people and injured about 60, authorities said.

At least five people died today in a train derailment in northern Spain, police said.

A 12-kilo bomb hidden in a bag on a busy high-speed rail line in Spain reignited terrorism fears in a country still traumatised by last month’s Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people.

Police probing the Madrid terrorist attacks have found a van with detonators and an Arabic-language tape with Koranic verses – and officials don’t rule out any line of investigation, Spanish Interior Minister Angel Acebes said tonight.

Flames from a blazing Spanish passenger express that had crashed head-on with a freight train prevented rescuers from getting to trapped passengers.

At least five people have been killed when a passenger train crashed into a freight train in central Spain. Twenty other people were missing feared dead, officials said.

A train carrying 87 passengers collided head-on with a freight train in central Spain tonight, killing at least one person and injuring around 30, officials said.

A train carrying 87 passengers collided head-on with a freight train in central Spain tonight, killing at least one person and injuring around 30, officials said.