Well, that Spanish train still runs between Guadalquivir and old Saville,
“Spanish Train”, Chris De Burgh
And at dead of night the whistle blows, and people fear she’s running still…
I attended a conference in Barcelona in the fall of 2018. I was fortunate to have my wife accompany me, and we made a vacation out of it by adding a few days at the start of the trip to tour the city. Barcelona is a great city and I’d love to go back.
I managed to squeeze a tiny bit of railfanning into the trip, naturally. Here are some trains, the subway and a tram!
The França Train Station
The Barcelona Estació de França (França train station) was built in 1929 and is an attractive station. I walked there one morning from our hotel and had a brief visit.
The entrance has some nice arching roofs and features a lot of marble.
There’s a cafe there as well as a ticket counter.
Naturally, I was more interested in the trains…
The Trains
Renfe is the Spanish national train agency, much like Canada’s VIA Rail and Amtrak in the USA. Renfe is an acrony of Red Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Españoles. One agency owns and maintains the track and infrastructure, and Renfe-Operada owns and operates the trains.
There was a wide variety of trains in the train shed. The Renfe class 130 (Talgo 250) train set above is able to operate on both Iberian gauge track (1.668m) and standard gauge (1.435m, 4′ 8.5″).
The orange train numbered “217M” below is a Civia electrical-multiple unit (EMU) train, built by CAF and Siemens.
Outside
The train shed has two arching, glass roofed sections. I have to say that they were looking a bit shabby when I visited in 2018.
I took a few photos of the trains outside the train shed before heading back to the hotel.
The Subway
Barcelona has an extensive subway system with eight lines (as well as a funicular railway) serving the city, airport and surrounding area. I believe we took the subway to and from the airport. We also took the subway to visit one of the several Gaudí buildings in the city.
Trams
There are six tram lines in Barcelona. We never rode them, but I photographed a couple of trams on line T4 near our hotel.
These lines use Alstom Citadis trams.
I hope to visit Barcelona (and Spain) again and see more trains!
Please visit my Trains in Europe page for links to other European trains!
