Bad news from Spain - RENFE have ended all overnight services, including domestic Tren-Hotel's, the Sud Express from the French Border to Lisbon and the Lusitania from Madrid to Lisbon. The Sud Express has a long history - the first train ran on 21 October 1887!
Unfortunately the only train now between Madrid and Lisbon is an all day series of local and regional trains.
I rode overnigt (sleeper) Lisbon - Madrid once. Is this closure Coronavirus-temporary or permanent?
daveklepper I rode overnigt (sleeper) Lisbon - Madrid once. Is this closure Coronavirus-temporary or permanent?
Only time will tell ! Ask in 16 months !
I have fond memories of taking an overnight train from Lisbon to Paris many years ago, complete with run-through change-of-guage at Irun/Hendaye. Alas, the overnight train is becoming a thing of the past as trains speeds have increased so much that in many markets the trip can be completed in half a day or less
Harder to attain a train on the main in Spain to cross the plain in the rain?
Memma Bad news from Spain - RENFE have ended all overnight services, including domestic Tren-Hotel's, the Sud Express from the French Border to Lisbon and the Lusitania from Madrid to Lisbon. The Sud Express has a long history - the first train ran on 21 October 1887! Unfortunately the only train now between Madrid and Lisbon is an all day series of local and regional trains.
Do you mean, re your second paragraph, that one cannot take a single train from Madrid to Lisbon? (!!) But rather one must change trains several times? Or do Madrid-Lisbon coaches run through?
I'd suspect most of this is transient, a combination of decreased demand for train service in the pandemic, probably greatly increased costs of sanitization and other hygiene in providing the sleepers, and perhaps a preconception -- that might be grounded in fact -- that chances for exposure would be magnified on overnight sleeper trains, including in accidental or complex ways.
I'd expect the service to resume once the issues in the pandemic have been resolved, or resolve themselves, if there is actual aggregate demand for a scheduled overnight service...
From what I've been reading here and in the IRJ, sleeper trains are making a comeback in Europe. New equipment is being built to meet demand and are being made to be easily disinfected.
It seems the overnight train in Spain is mainly on the wane.
By George, I think Gramp has got it!
Over the years I've ben reading of more overnight sleepers services' being discontinued. My only experience with a European sleeper is exactly two: (1) watching the Inverness to London sleeper train depart from Inverness in June 1999--no riding. There is a scene on that train's sleeper in "The Monarch of the Glen", and (2) actually riding and sleeping in a Liegewagen Leipzig to Duesseldorf in 1991 on a Sunday night as the climax to riding all over the Deutsche Reichsbahn on a pass for 15 days. My compartment had six berths transverse to the rails; I was the only one there all night. Lack of business probably--the same thing as here.
This is sad, I remember traveling with this train a few years ago, it was a cool experience.
This is sad, I remember traveling with this train a few years ago, it was a cool experience. Traveling by trains during the night is the best option in my opinion, because you don't lose time at all. You have to sleep anyway, and sleeping in a train is the most comfortable, because you're actually in a bed, not in a sitting position, like in a car or plane. My best memories about this kind of trips are related to dbauskunft.com, I remember how awesome was to travel across the Europe by these trains, I used to travel by car all the time, but now I like trains more.
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