Interrail passes and Spanish stations

[Segedunum]

Hi all,

Im currently in Spain and coming to the end of my Interrail Global pass.

I'm just hitting a snag. There's unstaffed ticket gates, everywhere. Bilbao Abando station gave me two single use gate passes and after that, i was stuck. No staff anywhere. The gates aren't exactly easy to get under or over so you're essentially trapped in the network. Thankfully i managed to find a station with a gate jarred open so I could leave.

Same happened at the FEVE station where i had to run around the station looking for someone to let me out. They didn't speak English either so couldn't explain to me how you get in or out.

Does anyone have any experience as to how i can actually use my pass without being fearful of entrapment, or in the case of tomorrow, missing the one train a day from Santander to Oviedo? (Well, there's two, but only one is gettable from Bilbao in time).

 

[cactustwirly]

Hi all,

Im currently in Spain and coming to the end of my Interrail Global pass.

I'm just hitting a snag. There's unstaffed ticket gates, everywhere. Bilbao Abando station gave me two single use gate passes and after that, i was stuck. No staff anywhere. The gates aren't exactly easy to get under or over so you're essentially trapped in the network. Thankfully i managed to find a station with a gate jarred open so I could leave.

Same happened at the FEVE station where i had to run around the station looking for someone to let me out. They didn't speak English either so couldn't explain to me how you get in or out.

Does anyone have any experience as to how i can actually use my pass without being fearful of entrapment, or in the case of tomorrow, missing the one train a day from Santander to Oviedo? (Well, there's two, but only one is gettable from Bilbao in time).

Is there not a barcode somewhere on the pass, I know there's one for dutch stations

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

Is there not a barcode somewhere on the pass, I know there's one for dutch stations

Exactly, there is a barcode for the Dutch railways, but nothing for the Spanish ones. Google also only finds anecdotes of people needing to buy €0 tickets from ticket offices.

 

[Segedunum]

Nope. Nothing at all. I do wonder whether to ask for a pile of single use tickets when I use the networks in Madrid and Valencia or ask what alternatives they have for me.

The user friendliness is just through the floor with this one.

The Italians are in a similar situation at some Trenord stations but they're mere turnstiles so if desperate you can just duck under.

 

[Segedunum]

So an update from the Cercanias Asturias network.

Had to double gate behind someone at Oviedo last night. Thankfully I'd been talking to them on the train (down to a weird train-taxi-train-bus-train saga from Sanatbder) and they let me do it Station was deserted with no staff. All gates shut.

This morning, Oviedo station refused to issue any more than 1 ticket valid for two hours. Ticket office staff there became rude and started talking over me and said "each network does whatever it wants" when I politely asked why they couldn't do the same as Bilbao and just give me a couple of blank double use gate passes to enable me to travel as I pleased. "Only people like me get something like a gate pass" I was told, "and you're not me are you"

Cleaner at one station was the only person around and insisted I paid. Ended up tracking down stationmaster to let me out.

I'm now feeding back all of this as I go to Interrail themselves as they say they had no idea acceptance was this bad. Hopefully something can be worked on for future travellers as I'd rather something useful came of this rather than me moaning at them for nothing