the essential
A direct rail line linking Toulouse to Barcelona will soon see the light of day, five years after the disappearance of the previous one. It will be provided by Renfe from next April with one round trip per day which will also serve Carcassonne and Perpignan.
Five years after his disappearance, a direct train will once again link Toulouse to Barcelona. Initially, the connection will be seasonal: from next April until mid-September, Renfe will offer one round trip per day via Carcassonne and Perpignan in 3 hours 30 minutes aboard a white AVE (the Spanish TGV ). If it is successful, then the line could extend to the rest of the year. “This is another step in the expansion of the Spanish TGV in France,” rejoiced Oscar Puente, Spanish Minister of Transport, on the X network.
Launched in 2013 by SNCF which then worked in collaboration with Renfe, the Toulouse Barcelona line was canceled in 2019. It never found its audience, due to excessive fares and bad timetables. Now a competitor of SNCF, Renfe should offer lower prices, like those it has been practicing for more than a year on the Madrid Marseille and Barcelona Lyon lines with trains 80% full on average.
The relaunch of this line comes after the controversial opening in May 2023 of an air link (which no longer exists today) between Barcelona and Toulouse by Vueling, two cities only 400 kilometers apart by road. “It’s inconceivable that there aren’t more rail connections, even though the infrastructure exists,” Carole Delga was outraged during a trip to Barcelona. The president of the Occitanie region therefore welcomed the news with satisfaction. “This is one more step in connecting France and Spain. Thank you to our Spanish partners and Renfe for being part of European construction thanks to carbon-free mobility.”
A reduced offer
This train was impatiently awaited by Antoine, a computer programmer from Aquitaine who has been living in Barcelona for three years. “It will allow me to reach Bordeaux by train via Toulouse. Until now I had to take the night bus, it was very restrictive. And then I don’t like taking the plane: we waste time and it doesn’t is not very ecological. The director of the Barcelona Campus of TBS Education, the Toulouse business school, Olivier Benielli has been calling for this train for a long time. “Today I’m taking my car to go to Toulouse. So this train is good news. But there is a downside: with this seasonal rhythm, we can see that Renfe is targeting tourists and not professionals. C It’s a shame.”
“It’s better than nothing,” analyzes Albert del Campo, Catalan engineer, specialist in railway issues. “But it is a reduced offer, with one round trip per day for only part of the year. The cross-border section between Perpignan and Figueres via the Perthus tunnel remains too little used. To better connect France and Spain, there should be many more trains crossing the border with more favorable timetables. Without this, the car will remain the best option between Catalonia and Occitania.
With this new line, the third in France, Renfe is establishing itself a little more in France even if it still cannot reach Paris. “France is doing everything possible to prevent a real process of liberalization on its market,” the Spanish transport minister recently regretted.
