spain – European Rail Campaign (UK)

EURC(UK) – THE CAMPAIGN MOVES INTO IT’S FIFTH YEAR

Nigel Perkins — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 16:05:24 +0000

We celebrated our 4th anniversary at our annual general meeting held in Birmingham on the 8th of December, noting a steadily growing membership. We were pleased to note that Eurostar were now running almost the same as the pre-covid service, even if this was not at pre-covid fares and still not serving Ashford and Ebbsfleet. Recently, there were more rumours in the press that, yet another European train operator wants to run a service to the UK via the channel tunnel – this time it was Swiss Federal Railways from Basel to London. Whether any of these 3 “plans” to compete against Eurostar see the light of day remains to be seen.

What can we look forward to as we approach 2024 ?

>>>We now have night train connections with Eurostar from Brussels to Berlin 6 days a week and one of these will be extended to Prague 3 times a week at the end of March.

>>> A growing high-speed train network in Spain, with more lines open and more services to many destinations.

>>> Many new trains coming into service in countries all over Europe (unlike the UK with very few new train orders placed in 2023).

BY TRAIN TO SPAIN COULD SOON GET A BIT EASIER?

Nigel Perkins — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 10:47:50 +0000

Since the completion of more high-speed lines in France and Spain over 10 years ago, it has been possible to make a daytime journey from London to Barcelona by changing trains in Paris. Unfortunately, SNCF (French State Railways) have run only 2-3 direct daily services from Paris to Barcelona in recent years. This means there is only one realistic connection with Eurostar in Paris giving a London-Barcelona journey time of around 11-12 hours. Until the rest of the high-speed link between Montpelier and Perpignan is completed, the journey to Spain can be more attractive by making stop-overs in one of the interesting places along the way. Once this line is completed, there could be up to 20 daily services connecting Paris and Barcelona. Now the stop-over options have just become easier as RENFE (Spanish State Railways) are now also running 2 new daytime services: – one from Marseille to Madrid and another from Lyon to Barcelona.

You can look here for some useful stopover hints: https://www.youtube.com/@low-carbon-travel/videos.

IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS: – Various campaigns are now taking shape with the aim of making further improvements to cross-border services. We can expect the start of 2 new night train services: – one from Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris to Barcelona and another from Zurich to Barcelona. We are hoping that a regular service of up to 8-9 daily regional trains can run from Barcelona to Perpignan in the next few years. Finally, on the Atlantic coast, we have the possibility of a completely new regular interval regional service between San Sebastian and Bayonne, once modernisation work on the line in Spain has been completed.

You can find out more about the possibilities at: https://www.epf.eu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Pau-Noy-AIF.pdf.

TO SPAIN BY TRAIN ?

Nigel Perkins — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 10:35:19 +0000

Thanks to investment in the High-Speed Network, for several years it has been possible to take daytime trains from London to many parts of Northern and Eastern Spain. This is not quite so easy for those living further away from London or not wanting a long daytime journey with one or more changes along the way. However, there are many places along the way which could make a very pleasant stop-over to break up the journey. Have a look at this link for some interesting ideas :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGR3ipqyjes&list=PL8w-BAm7lVzfnTCJauwicMo0-eeYPkE0h