Have night trains/sleepers finished in Spain

[Hoofhearted]

Trying to find sleeper trains in Spain and nothing appears. Have they been withdrawn?

 

[mad_rich]

Nothing in Spain/ Portugal any more. The last Elipsos Trenhotel was cancelled during Covid I think.

The only relevant ones would be getting to Spain. Paris to Hendaye/ Latour de Carol/ Cerbère, all close to the border.

There is talk from European Sleeper of operating Amsterdam-Barcelona I think, but no firm plans.

 

[HS2isgood]

Yes. Renfe are idiots.

 

[rvdborgt]

Yes. Renfe are idiots.

Renfe decide what passengers want. Unfortunately, that is confirmed on a regular basis.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

To be fair, the ever expanding high-speed network has pretty much negated the need for domestic sleeper services in Spain - I'm old enough to remember when sleepers even ran from Madrid to Torremolinos and Fuengirola via Málaga! International services are another matter - the loss of the 'Sud Express' (Hendaye / Irun - Lisbon) and Madrid - Lisbon (at least until the new lines are completed) is very unfortunate.

 

[peterblue]

Most journeys within Spain can be done relatively quickly, within a few hours or so.

As posted above, for international journeys to Paris (and beyond) there are a few different Intercités de Nuit night trains from border towns. The journey from Latour de Carol to Paris is a most scenic one, and Barcelona-Latour (by local train) is also very pleasant.

Madrid to Lisbon is very arduous by train at the moment. You can either take a horde of regional trains from Badajoz (Spain) or divert north via Vigo & Porto.

 

[popeter45]

The canceling of the Lisbon sleepers got very political as CP offered to buy the rolling stock and run it themselves but renfe flat out refused to let a replacement service run, effectively dictating that Portugal should not have a easy connection to the rest of Europe, in general renfe try to isolate CP especially with freight as Portugal could easy take alot of ship traffic away from Spain

The irony wasn't lost when the renfe repainted one of the old sets for that cross Europe EU train celebration to only run it once and only for delegates

 

[nwales58]

Madrid to Lisbon is very arduous by train at the moment. You can either take a horde of regional trains from Badajoz (Spain) or divert north via Vigo & Porto.

Or use Rede Expressos or Alsa, around 9 1/2 hours Oriente to Sur.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Dec 2023 ==

... freight as Portugal could easy take alot of ship traffic away from Spain

in CP's view.

Despite Portugal getting Sines added to TEN-T a couple of decades ago, Algeciras, Valencia and Barcelona are never going to lose much container traffic to the Portuguese ports, just look at current volumes and how they relate to the main container routes. Asia<>Europe is now roughly double the TEUs of trans-Atlantic whereas years ago they were similar, it is the Atlantic flows that the Portuguese arguments used to be based on. Even then, once something is on sea it's cheapest to leave it on sea for as much of the journey as possible.

 

[mad_rich]

Madrid to Lisbon is very arduous by train at the moment. You can either take a horde of regional trains from Badajoz (Spain) or divert north via Vigo & Porto.

It's mad that Madrid to Lisbon is ~ the same distance as Barcelona.

2.5 hours to Barcelona, 12 hours to Lisbon!

 

[HS2isgood]

It's mad that Madrid to Lisbon is ~ the same distance as Barcelona.

2.5 hours to Barcelona, 12 hours to Lisbon!

I think it's more like 9.5 hours now, changing at Entroncamento and Badajoz. Whenever Évora to Elvas opens, it'll get to 6.5 hours, changing once at Badajoz. As Renfe stock doesn't have Convel, no Renfe trains will run beyond Évora (and trains from Madrid will terminate at Badajoz, it's a new class 121 Avant service that will serve Évora).

 

[Austriantrain]

It's mad that Madrid to Lisbon is ~ the same distance as Barcelona.

2.5 hours to Barcelona, 12 hours to Lisbon!

But also needs to be said that Madrid to Barcelona is one of the fastest rail journeys you can do on the European continent and has barely an equivalent elsewhere.

But that's railway Spain nowadays: Where a HSL has been built, you can expert a better offer than almost anywhere else (especially on the lines where competitors now also run). Everywhere else is like in the 1950s, often worse.

 

[nwales58]

Everywhere else is like in the 1950s, often worse.

Nicer rolling stock than in the 50s. Many fewer places served.

 

[mad_rich]

But also needs to be said that Madrid to Barcelona is one of the fastest rail journeys you can do on the European continent and has barely an equivalent elsewhere.

Astonishingly, my own route NCL-KGX isn't far behind for some journeys.

2h35 on the Flying Scotsman, averaging 103mph.

vs 3h17 on the 'slow' train Madrid to Barcelona, averaging 116mph.

 

[ainsworth74]

But also needs to be said that Madrid to Barcelona is one of the fastest rail journeys you can do on the European continent and has barely an equivalent elsewhere.

Is that really the case? I've done Marsaille - Paris from start to stop at an average speed of 138mph, London - Paris north of 130mph and Paris - Bordeaux at 160mph! So that's three other routes for a start!

 

[Austriantrain]

Is that really the case? I've done Marsaille - Paris from start to stop at an average speed of 138mph, London - Paris north of 130mph and Paris - Bordeaux at 160mph! So that's three other routes for a start!

Of course, there are some in France; the ECML is also very fast, and nonstop trains Rome - Milan too. But those are still a very limited number of routes compared to what's an offer in Europe. So Madrid - Barcelona is among the best there is.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Of course, there are some in France; the ECML is also very fast, and nonstop trains Rome - Milan too. But those are still a very limited number of routes compared to what's an offer in Europe. So Madrid - Barcelona is among the best there is.

Madrid to Barcelona cannot be beaten for frequency. Four different operators and often several trains per hour.

 

[Austriantrain]

Madrid to Barcelona cannot be beaten for frequency. Four different operators and often several trains per hour.

I agree. But the point I was (apparently unsuccessfully) trying to make was: The contrast between new and old railways is extreme in Spain; much more so than in many other countries where I know the railway system.

 

[dutchflyer]

On the subject of remaining nighttrains:just mins after seeing this I saw on the german DSO-forum a nice link to a new site that gives geographic maps:
back-on-track.eu.
Dr google often still leads these searches to a site raildude-well, many years ago that was a nice enthusiast site run by 2 germans/austrains, but it has not been updated since 5-6 yrs now and thus still happily shows the RENFE old ones. BTW: Somehow I also kind of remember there was a large issue with nighttime work in Spain.
Raildude recently however has added euronox which caims to be able to make bookings on nighttrains

 

[Giugiaro]

The irony wasn't lost when the renfe repainted one of the old sets for that cross Europe EU train celebration to only run it once and only for delegates

And more! The set chosen could go beyond borders since it was a Talgo with gauge-changing axles!
It wasn't exactly a Renfe skill issue that the train didn't go beyond Hendaye. The whole concept of the Connecting Europe Express was extremely flawed.

We had the technology to make a train that could travel anywhere in Europe, so why did the EU Commission decide to go with the "we need to show the technical difficulties we have"???
Were they that scared of finding out that the real barrier to true international rail in Europe is political and financial???

 

[nwales58]

The whole concept of the Connecting Europe Express was extremely flawed.

... why did the EU Commission decide to go with the "we need to show the technical difficulties we have"???

Simple. Because the cleverest minds of Europe have created a set of policy concepts for transport and the real world has to be morphed into those concepts.

This is from real experience back in DG TREN days. For another example search for "Motorways of the Sea" and despair: we have intermodal containers, we have RoRo, but DG TREN had to invent a new concept that was ill-defined and ultimately futile, consultants had to reformulate port bids as Mways of the Sea to get funded.

If someone had latched on to the right policy idea, whatever buzz phrase means long-distance passenger shift from aviation, e.g. Hotels in Motion or EcoSleep, variable gauge sleeper trains might have become part of the future. Otherwise 'international' gauge good, broad gauge must be eliminated. Sorry, Finland.