Spain was already reeling from the Adamuz high-speed rail disaster outside Córdoba in January, in which 46 people died.
The journey began on a normal Wednesday approaching 08:30 local time, as passengers settled into their morning routines.
Once the initial impact was over, passengers in Binier's carriage debated whether it was safe to leave because of the electrical wires strewn outside the train.
Sebastián Herrero was travelling in the train which was hit from the rear, and the terrible, terrible impact threw him on to the seats in front.
Some of the passengers were asleep, some had already started their working day on laptops, and others scrolled through their apps on their phones.
The routine was interrupted with an announcement that there was congestion on the tracks.
Ahead of it on the same line was a train of Iryo private operator with 147 passengers, while another train run by state-owned operator Renfe had 397 passengers on board.
What caught my attention is that in one of the coaches there was a piece of train track that went through the roof of the coach, and I think that might have helped to stop or reduce the inertia of the train, Sebastián Herrero said. Then the impossible happened, Spain's transport minister said, as the Renfe train was ordered to proceed in error.
It was approaching 08:30 (07:30 GMT) on a normal Wednesday.
"It isn't possible that our train was stopped for five or 10 minutes and that the other train wasn't told to stop,"one of them said.