I mentioned in a previous post about the complexity in buying a ticket for this rail service which goes from Barcelona-El Prat Airport to the city centre. However, with the ticket acquired and the train only slightly late, I was hoping for the journey itself to be rather smoother.
There was no shortage of space aboard the train, which appeared to have around six carriages and plenty of available seating. There were no power outlets, something several passengers discovered after conducting the traditional inspection beneath every available seat, but everything was clean and sufficiently functional.
As some background, the airport railway branch opened in 1975 as a dedicated shuttle connecting Barcelona Sants directly with the airport. Stops at Bellvitge and El Prat de Llobregat were added later, and the branch was eventually incorporated into the wider R2 Nord service. The northern section of that route is substantially older, originating with the Barcelona to Granollers railway which opened in 1854.
Around thirty minutes later, I arrived safely at Barcelona Sants railway station. It seemed relatively large but was straightforward to navigate, meaning that leaving the station required considerably less assistance than buying the ticket to reach it.
The rather drab-looking Barcelona Sants entered service in stages during the 1970s and was completed in 1979 as the city’s principal railway station. Its largely underground platforms allowed the surrounding railway approaches to be covered over and helped reconnect neighbourhoods previously divided by surface tracks. The station was later expanded for high-speed services, with direct AVE trains from Madrid reaching Barcelona in 2008.
After the considerable difficulty involved in buying a ticket, the actual journey had been almost disappointingly straightforward. Renfe had eventually transported me into central Barcelona without further negotiation, machine-kicking or assistance from ChatGPT, so perhaps the system worked after all. I was conscious that I still had to buy a ticket back to the airport, although I remained confident that the process would be easier the second time as what could possibly go wrong?