the essential
After being stopped in 2019 by SNCF, the Toulouse-Barcelona train will return with the Spanish company Renfe in spring 2025. The approvals have just been obtained.
Toulouse Barcelona by train, here we go again! After the journey was stopped in 2019 by SNCF, it is Renfe which is relaunching the cross-border journey between the two metropolises. The European Union Rail Agency has just certified that the Spanish operator complies with all the requirements imposed by the French Safety Agency (EPSF) and the Spanish Safety Agency (AESF).
The route would include stops in Girona, Figueres, Perpignan then Carcassonne before reaching Toulouse. All in a three and a half hour journey.
“From spring 2025, Renfe will offer six daily frequencies (three in each direction) which will connect 17 cities in the two countries with direct travel,” the company said in a press release.
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Initially, the connection will be seasonal: from next April until mid-September, Renfe will offer these journeys 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.
Launched in 2013 by SNCF which then worked in collaboration with Renfe, the Toulouse Barcelona line was canceled in 2020. 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. .
“Excellent news”
“A large part of the routes served by AVE International trains could only be traveled, until the entry into service of Renfe in France in July 2023, by road and, in certain cases, by plane,” explains Renfe .
“The TGV is finally back between Toulouse and Barcelona […]”, this is excellent news”, rejoiced the mayor of Toulouse, Jean-Luc Moudenc, “both for our industries and for the decarbonization of our travel: a real alternative to the car and the plane.”
