* Driver investigated, speeding said to be cause
* Tragedy occurred on eve of major religious festival
* One of Europe's worst rail disasters
* Media says driver boasted of his speed
By Teresa Medrano and Miguel Vidal
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain, July 25 (Reuters) - Policetook the driver of a Spanish train into custody in hospital onThursday after at least 80 people died when it derailed andcaught fire in a dramatic accident which an official source saidwas caused by excessive speed.
The eight-carriage high velocity train came off the tracksjust outside the pilgrimage centre of Santiago de Compostela innorthwestern Spain on Wednesday night. It was one of Europe'sworst rail disasters.
The source had knowledge of the official investigation intoa crash which brought misery to Santiago on Thursday, the daywhen it should have celebrated one of Europe's biggest Christianfestivals. Authorities cancelled festivities as the city wentinto mourning.
The Galicia region supreme court said in a statement thatthe judge investigating the accident had ordered police to putthe driver in custody and take a statement from him. He wasunder formal investigation, the court said.
Dramatic video footage from a security camera showed thetrain, with 247 people on board, hurtling into a concrete wallat the side of the track as carriages jack-knifed and the engineoverturned.
One local official described the aftermath of the crash aslike a scene from hell, with bodies strewn next to the tracks.
The impact was so huge one carriage flew several metres intothe air and landed on the other side of the high concretebarrier.
Some 94 people were injured, of whom 35 were in a seriouscondition, including four children, the deputy head of theregional government said.
"We heard a massive noise and we went down the tracks. Ihelped get a few injured and bodies out of the train. I wentinto one of the cars but I'd rather not tell you what I sawthere," Ricardo Martinez, a 47-year old baker from Santiago deCompostela, told Reuters.
The train had two drivers, the Galicia government said, butit was not immediately clear which one was in hospital and underinvestigation.
Newspaper accounts cited witnesses as saying one driver,Francisco Jose Garzon, who had helped rescue victims, shoutedinto a phone: "I've derailed! What do I do?".
The 52-year-old had been a train driver for 30 years, aRenfe spokeswoman said. Many newspapers published excerpts fromhis Facebook account where he was reported to have boasted ofdriving trains at high speed. The page was taken offline onThursday and the reports could not be verified.
TRAIN HIT BEND AT SPEED
El Pais newspaper said one of the drivers told the railwaystation by radio after being trapped in his cabin that the trainentered the bend at 190 kilometres per hour (120 mph). Anofficial source said the speed limit on that stretch of twintrack, laid in 2011, was 80 kph.
"We're only human! We're only human!" the driver told thestation, the newspaper said, citing sources close to theinvestigation. "I hope there are no dead, because this will fallon my conscience."
Investigators were trying to urgently establish why thetrain was going so fast and why security devices to keep speedwithin permitted limits had not worked.
The train, operated by state-owned company Renfe, was builtby Bombardier and Talgo and was around five years old. It hadalmost the maximum number of passengers.
Spain's rail safety record is better than the Europeanaverage, ranking 18th out of 27 countries in terms of railwaydeaths per kilometres travelled, the European Railway Agencysaid. There were 218 train accidents in Spain between 2008-2011,well below the European Union average of 426 for the sameperiod, the agency said.
EVE OF FESTIVAL
Firefighters called off a strike to help with the disaster,while hospital staff, many operating on reduced salaries becauseof spending cuts in recession-hit Spain, worked overtime to tendthe injured.
The disaster happened at 8.41 p.m. (1841 GMT) on the eve ofa festival dedicated to St. James, one of Jesus's 12 disciples,whose remains are said to rest in the city's centuries-oldcathedral.
The apostle's shrine is the destination of the famous ElCamino de Santiago pilgrimage across the Pyrenees, which hasbeen followed by Christians since the Middle Ages.
Instead of a joyous festival, masses were held every hour inthe cathedral. "The main mass was transformed from a mass of joyinto a mass of mourning," said Italian pilgrim IreneValsangiacomo.
One U.S. citizen died in the crash and five were injured,the State Department said in Washington. Mexico said one of itsnationals was among the dead.
At least one British citizen was injured, a British embassyspokesman said. Several other nationalities were believed to beamong the passengers.
Neighbours ran to the site to help emergency workers tend tothe wounded. Ana Taboada, a 29-year-old hospital worker, was oneof the first on the scene.
"When the dust lifted I saw corpses. I didn't make it downto the track, because I was helping the passengers that werecoming up the embankment," she told Reuters. "I saw a man tryingto break a window with a stone to help those inside get out."
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in Santiago deCompostela, the capital of Galicia region, visited the site andthe main hospital on Thursday. He declared three days ofofficial national mourning for the victims of the disaster.
King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia also went to Santiago andvisited the injured in hospital.
Passenger Ricardo Montesco told Cadena Ser radio station thetrain approached the curve at high speed, twisted and thecarriages piled up one on top of the other.
PASSENGERS SQUASHED
"A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried tosqueeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and werealised the train was burning. ... I was in the second carriage and there was fire. ... I saw corpses," he said.
Both Renfe and state-owned Adif, which is in charge of thetracks, had opened an investigation into the cause of thederailment, Renfe said.
Clinics in Santiago de Compostela were overwhelmed withpeople flocking to give blood, while hotels organised free roomsfor relatives. Madrid sent forensic scientists and hospitalstaff to the scene on special flights.
The train was travelling from Madrid to Ferrol on theGalician coast when it derailed, Renfe said in a statement. Itleft Madrid on time and was travelling on schedule, aspokeswoman said.
Allianz Seguros, owned by Germany's Allianz, ownsthe insurance contract for loss suffered by Renfe passengers, acompany spokeswoman told Reuters. The contract does not coverRenfe's trains. The company had sent experts to the scene, shesaid.
The disaster stirred memories of a train bombing in Madridin 2004, carried out by Islamist militants, that killed 191people, although officials do not suspect an attack this time.
Spain is struggling to emerge from a long-running recessionmarked by government-driven austerity to bring its deeplyindebted finances into order.
But Adif, the state railways infrastructure company, toldReuters no budget cuts had been implemented on maintenance ofthe line, which connects La Coruna, Santiago de Compostela andOurense and was inaugurated in 2011.
It said more than 100 million euros a year were being spenton track maintenance in Spain.
Wednesday's derailment was one of the worst rail accidentsin Europe over the past 25 years.
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