Night train from Paris to Barcelona
TheSmiths82
I am hoping to go away in May to France and Spain, although the stupid Eurostar prices mean I might have to get a Flixbus to Paris from London. There is...
RailUK Forums
I am hoping to go away in May to France and Spain, although the stupid Eurostar prices mean I might have to get a Flixbus to Paris from London. There is even a direct coach from Manchester, but I am not sure I will be able to handle that distance on a Flixbus!

I was thinking of getting the night train down to Barcelona or Girona. In the old days I used to do this by getting the night train to Perpignan then getting a train into Spain, apart from the long wait in Perpignan for the connection it was an OK experience, although the train could feel a tad dodgy at times as it stopped at some of the more dubious cities in the south of France. It is no longer possible to get a direct train to Perpignan so I was thinking of getting a direct night train to Latour de Carol instead. My concern is this is a very rural stop and I might get stranded as there doesn't seem to be anyway of booking a ticket in advance from here to Barcelona and my own experience of Renefe's local services is they can be hit and miss once you get out of the outer Barcelona region.

Can anybody suggest an alternative way of getting the train from Paris to Barcelona (region) cheaply? The main problem is I work term time so I can only go away in the half term/summer holidays.

... I am a bit worried about being stranded in a little village. It just puts me off that I can't buy a ticket in advance to Barcelona itself.

Relax. Relax. Relax.

Like Blaenau Ffestiniog, visitors worry about not being able to buy a ticket ahead and book a seat, but you wouldn't because you know it's pay on board and no reserved seats.

You could download the Renfe Cercanias app (not the main one) and try to buy a ticket but a) it will probably say no as it often does and b) it gains you absolutely nothing at all.

Yes, if you miss the 1037 LTdC-Barclona you have 3 hours until the next one.

If I needed to be in Barcelona at a fixed time or had a lot of luggage or the weather is bad I would not go that way.

With a rucsac I would because worst case is you fill the time by wandering the 2-3 miles to Puigcerda which is a normal spanish (catalan) town with bars and so on. From Puigcerda there are coaches to Barcelona as well as the train. The track more or less follows the railway.

If you fancy an all day adventure and are really really lucky the metre gauge 3rd rail Petit Train might be running and it might even get you down to Villefranch and a connection of less than an hour to Perpignan and then along the coast.

So: if you're worried go another way. If you're happy taking time experiencing the wilds of Cerdagne along the way, do it.

Relax. Relax. Relax.

Like Blaenau Ffestiniog, visitors worry about not being able to buy a ticket ahead and book a seat, but you wouldn't because you know it's pay on board and no reserved seats.

You could download the Renfe Cercanias app (not the main one) and try to buy a ticket but a) it will probably say no as it often does and b) it gains you absolutely nothing at all.

Yes, if you miss the 1037 LTdC-Barclona you have 3 hours until the next one.

If I needed to be in Barcelona at a fixed time or had a lot of luggage or the weather is bad I would not go that way.

With a rucsac I would because worst case is you fill the time by wandering the 2-3 miles to Puigcerda which is a normal spanish (catalan) town with bars and so on. From Puigcerda there are coaches to Barcelona as well as the train. The track more or less follows the railway.

If you fancy an all day adventure and are really really lucky the metre gauge 3rd rail Petit Train might be running and it might even get you down to Villefranch and a connection of less than an hour to Perpignan and then along the coast.

So: if you're worried go another way. If you're happy taking time experiencing the wilds of Cerdagne along the way, do it.

Brilliant thanks, and I feel a bit more relaxed knowing there is a decent sized town near by if I do get stranded. I am quite familiar with the ('R') Rodales? trains but I know they can be a bit unreliable but usually not gone much further than Blanes on it (towards France).

I will look into all this a bit more this evening, but I am now thinking May half term might be cutting things a bit fine, and I only have 10 days off which isn't a huge amount of time for such long distance trip by rain. The issue with summer is hotels are more expensive and I suspect the Olympics might make travelling through France trickier.

We did Paris to Barcelona via Latour de Carol last September. I’d recommend it.

Sadly we had to come back via a different route as SNCF went on strike and cancelled our return Intercites de Nuit train.

The train from Latour de Carol to Barcelona is just an extended working of a suburban route. Travelling from Latour de Carol you have to buy your ticket on board from the conductor as there are no Spanish ticketing facilities on the French side of the border, and it’s an anomalous service that doesn’t work with app based ticketing etc.

I'd highly recommend the route (assuming the sleeper is running - I have a vague memory of suggestions that it might be suspended for a while due to engineering work).

I did the French side in the dark and it looked as if would have been rather scenic in the light. The Spanish side was certainly impressive, and a huge contrast to the scenery further south in Spain.

And you get to change trains at one of the very few stations anywhere with three track guages (and while I don't suppose the narrow gauge trains would run if not for the tourist market, they are at least run by the national rail company).

I am hoping to go away in May to France and Spain, although the stupid Eurostar prices mean I might have to get a Flixbus to Paris from London. There is even a direct coach from Manchester, but I am not sure I will be able to handle that distance on a Flixbus!

I was thinking of getting the night train down to Barcelona or Girona. In the old days I used to do this by getting the night train to Perpignan then getting a train into Spain, apart from the long wait in Perpignan for the connection it was an OK experience, although the train could feel a tad dodgy at times as it stopped at some of the more dubious cities in the south of France. It is no longer possible to get a direct train to Perpignan so I was thinking of getting a direct night train to Latour de Carol instead. My concern is this is a very rural stop and I might get stranded as there doesn't seem to be anyway of booking a ticket in advance from here to Barcelona and my own experience of Renefe's local services is they can be hit and miss once you get out of the outer Barcelona region.

Can anybody suggest an alternative way of getting the train from Paris to Barcelona (region) cheaply? The main problem is I work term time so I can only go away in the half term/summer holidays.

Why not do the overnight Flixbus to Lille instead and do a Ouigo low cost TGV into Paris, so you only then have 6/7 hours on a coach. Then maybe pick up the sleeper from Paris Austerlitz to Latour de Carol and the Rodalies as others have suggested.

Lots of the Ouigos use Tourcoing in Lille, rather than Lille Europe/ Flanders, but that shouldn't be a huge issue as Tourcoing's

Gare is about 25 mins on the metro from Lille Europe (where the Flixbus drops off) and the Metro operates from 5am onwards, first Ouigo is at 6.02 to Charles De Gaulle/Marne-le-Vallee/Massy TGVs - all of which are a reasonable RER ride away from central Paris.

If you're getting Flixbus across the Channel to Lille or Paris, I think you can look at each journey's intermediate stops to decipher if it uses the Dover ferry or the Channel Tunnel LeShuttle train. Personally, I would avoid the Dover ferry after the severe passport control delays at Port of Dover last Easter, when the Port gave lowest priority to coaches and my Flixbus had to give up and return to London due to driver hours limit being reached.

That's a fair point, although I must caution that the overnight coach uses Irish Ferries, and that's the best placed for doing Barcelona by train.

Probably small border queues at that time though, my friend did it last October coming to meet me in Brussels and it was fine.

Worth saying perhaps that for the Cerbere / Port Bou alternative route, the RENFE Cercanias / Rodalies trains to Barcelona are pretty awful - really basic, austere EMUs (somewhere between Pacer and EN57 in passenger ambience!), only 3 cars so grossly overloaded to/from a long way out of Barcelona (at least mine was), unpunctual / unreliable, and driver-only operated so nobody to ask if there is a problem. Wildly unsuitable for a journey of ca. 3 hours.

To be fair, the Latour de Carol line is not dissimilar, just less crowded generally...

I was on the Barcelona - Cerbere line the other day, trying to get to Nimes, but ended up having to get off at Girona and pay extra to go on the AVE because the Rodalies had lost so much time it would not have made the connection into SNCF, so I would have had a 2-hour wait at the border. After the chaotic experiences at Barcelona Sants (a very user-unfriendly station even by RENFE standards - and I am used to Sants!), all in all a very awful experience!

Unless it's the middle of winter there are worse places to be stranded for a few hours than Latour-de-Carol, though I'll readily admit there isn't much to do there!

When I did the route in 2018 there was an issue with the Spanish unit on the return journey, and I was worried I'd miss the connection with the sleeper... luckily the driver managed to get the unit working again!

As far as comfort is concerned, the units are used across the Rodalies system, but some have a more 'austere' interior. There seemed to be some thought given to allocating the units with nicer interiors (and less graffiti) to the longer-distance services, though it could have been more luck than judgement. Whilst they aren't sumptuous by any stretch, calling them awful is a bit of an exaggeration. They're certainly no worse than the refurbished 156s on the West Highland or the refurbished 158s on the Settle & Carlisle, other than the lack of tables.

Worth saying perhaps that for the Cerbere / Port Bou alternative route, the RENFE Cercanias / Rodalies trains to Barcelona are pretty awful - really basic, austere EMUs (somewhere between Pacer and EN57 in passenger ambience!), only 3 cars so grossly overloaded to/from a long way out of Barcelona (at least mine was), unpunctual / unreliable, and driver-only operated so nobody to ask if there is a problem. Wildly unsuitable for a journey of ca. 3 hours.

To be fair, the Latour de Carol line is not dissimilar, just less crowded generally...

I was on the Barcelona - Cerbere line the other day, trying to get to Nimes, but ended up having to get off at Girona and pay extra to go on the AVE because the Rodalies had lost so much time it would not have made the connection into SNCF, so I would have had a 2-hour wait at the border. After the chaotic experiences at Barcelona Sants (a very user-unfriendly station even by RENFE standards - and I am used to Sants!), all in all a very awful experience!

The Rodalies trains are bad indeed, but there are also MD trains between Portbou and Barcelona which use way more comfortable stock and stop a lot less. I would advise to use the MD trains if possible. I believe they sort of alternate Rodalies and MD trains (both once every 2 hours).

Unless it's the middle of winter there are worse places to be stranded for a few hours than Latour-de-Carol, though I'll readily admit there isn't much to do there!

When I did the route in 2018 there was an issue with the Spanish unit on the return journey, and I was worried I'd miss the connection with the sleeper... luckily the driver managed to get the unit working again!

As far as comfort is concerned, the units are used across the Rodalies system, but some have a more 'austere' interior. There seemed to be some thought given to allocating the units with nicer interiors (and less graffiti) to the longer-distance services, though it could have been more luck than judgement. Whilst they aren't sumptuous by any stretch, calling them awful is a bit of an exaggeration. They're certainly no worse than the refurbished 156s on the West Highland or the refurbished 158s on the Settle & Carlisle, other than the lack of tables.

I went a couple of weeks ago and the unit I went on had IET seats (Fainsa Sophia I think?)

I went a couple of weeks ago and the unit I went on had IET seats (Fainsa Sophia I think?)

I've not got the various seat types memorised, so I've no idea what type the "comfier" seats were. The ones I referred to that looked less comfortable had hard plastic seats. I didn't have to put up with those but saw several units fitted with them also running R3 services pass through Sants before the one for Latour-de-Carol arrived from Llobregat.

The unit for my return journey was (IIRC) the front of a nine car formation when boarding at Sants, and dropped off one unit at Vic and another at Ripoll. The set for Vic had the plastic seats, the one for Ripoll had the nicer seats but lacked the ski-racks that the unit for Latour-de-Carol had. The Latour unit was also the only unit I saw during my trip that had no graffiti on it!

The seats looked quite old though, and as this was 2018 it's entirely possible that the fleet has been refurbished since then.