Rail transport in Catalonia

Rail transport in Catalonia operates on three rail gauges and services are operated by a variety of public operators[1]:

Contents

Transport authorities

Transport authorities are interadministrative voluntarily corporations responsible of coordinate a public transport system. Nowadays there are four transport authorities in Catalonia:

Rodalies Barcelona

Main article: Rodalies Barcelona

Rodalies Barcelona is the principal element of Barcelona metropolitan area transport and in some municipalities of Girona and Tarragona.

There are 15 lines (R1-R2-R3-R4-R7-R10-S1-S2-S5-S55-S1-S8-S33-R5-R6) operated by:

Mitjana distància

Mitjana distància or Media distancia Renfe (in catalan or castilian) (also called Catalunya Exprés: Ca lines) there are 9 lines (Ca1-Ca2-Ca3-Ca4-Ca5-Ca6-Ca7-R43-L7). Those lines go all around of the four catalan provinces and some of them go to Zaragoza (Aragón) and Castelló de la Plana and València in País Valencià. Lines are operated by:

  1. ^ All Barcelona trains start in Estació de França, Sant Andreu Comtal or Barcelona Sants.
  2. ^ That line was traspassed to U.N. Rodalies and now is considered a Rodalies Barcelona line 3 enlargement.
  3. ^ That line was traspassed to FGC but is operated by Renfe Operadora.[5]

Llarga distància

Llarga distància or Larga distancia (in catalan or castilian) are Renfe lines that used other Renfe lines, mitjana distància or Rodalies, and connect Catalonia with other Spanish towns or European cities. Some of them are high speed lines[6].

Alta Velocidad Española

Main articles: AVE and Madrid–Barcelona high-speed rail line

High speed lines are operated by Renfe in a commercial branch called Alta Velocidad Española (AVE). Those lines run in new standard gauge railways.

Railway gauge

Most of catalan railway gauge is broad gauge, as in the other parts of Spain, and the new railways are build in standard gauge for being able to connect with European railways. That's why there are some stations where trains can change the gauge. For the moment there are only two stations in Catalonia that have that machinery:

Metropolitan railways

Main article: Metro de Barcelona

There are 11 metropolitan lines in Barcelona (L1-L2-L3-L4-L5-L6-L7-L8-L9-L10-L11) operated by:

Metro de Barcelona
Name Color Terminal Terminal Opened First
service		 Operator Km Stations Time
(m)		 Gauge
(mm)
L1 Red Hospital de Bellvitge Fondo 1926 1926 TMB 20'7 30 35 1674
L2 Purple Paral·lel Badalona Pompeu Fabra 1995 1959 TMB 13'5 17 24 1435
L3 Green Zona Universitària Trinitat Nova 1924 1924 TMB 18'5 26 36 1435
L4 Yellow Trinitat Nova La Pau 1973 1926 TMB 16'7 22 36 1435
L5 Blue Cornellà Centre Vall d'Hebron 1959 1959 TMB 16'6 23 37 1435
L6 Navy blue Plaça Catalunya Reina Elisenda 1929 18634 FGC 5'2 9 14 1435
L7 Brown Plaça Catalunya Avinguda Tibidabo 1954 18634 FGC 4'63 7 10 1435
L8 Pink Plaça Espanya Molí Nou-C.C. 2000 1912 FGC 12 11 21 1000
L9 Orange Terminal Sud Can Zam 2009-14 - TMB 47'8 39 (51) - 1435
L10 Light blue Gorg Polígon Pratenc 2009-14 - TMB - 32 - 1435
L11 Light green Trinitat Nova Can Cuiàs 2003 2003 TMB 2'1 5 6 1435

Territory

Nowadays there are 32 comarques with some kind of service, 14 of those have Rodalies Barcelona and/or FGC services. There are comarques that have mitjana distància stations or llarga distància and 9 comarques without ferrocarril service.

References

  1. ^ Trenscat, Catalan trains web (Catalan)
  2. ^ Rodalies map
  3. ^ Xarxa FGC
  4. ^ Mitjana Distància Renfe map
  5. ^ Ministeri de Foment. «Traspàs de la línia de la Pobla de Segur».Nota del traspàsPDF (55.2 KB) (Spanish)
  6. ^ Llarga distància Renfe (Spanish)
Transport authorities of Catalonia (integrated transport system)
ATM Àrea de Barcelona:
ATM Camp de Tarragona:
Urban buses · Interurban buses
ATM Comarques Centrals *:
FGC R5 line · Rodalies R4 line · Urban buses · Interurban buses
ATM Àrea de Girona:
Urban buses · Interurban buses
ATM Àrea de Lleida:
FGC Lleida-Balaguer · Urban buses of Lleida · Interurban buses
(*) in a nearly future