After years of frustration, suddenly progress with France - Spain rail connections

In the Newsletter this week
Analysis: After years of frustration, suddenly progress with France - Spain rail connections
Bullshit Meter: Direct trains Trieste - Beograd
Good week: A little summer holiday pause
Also a good week: Electrification at Fuentes de Oñoro might be done this year
Bad week: Nothing more than seasonal trains Muszyna - Poprad
Very bad week: Castex applies pressure to the Autorité de régulation des transports
Odd week: Passenger drives a microcar onto a train
Elsewhere this week: Het Financieele Dagblad podcast
Photo of the week: Railbus at Jindřichovice pod Smrkem
Calendar: Photo presentation at Lindow (Mark) 9th August, 16:00

Newsletter 024, Friday 10th July 2026.
Subscriber-only newsletter, sent every Friday at 14:00 CET.

After years of frustration, suddenly progress with France - Spain rail connections

Back in March 2025, this was the state of the broad gauge 1668mm tracks at Hendaye, French side of the border between France and Spain at the Atlantic coast (OpenRailwayMap):

Meanwhile Irun on the other side of the border (OpenRailwayMap), looked like this:

Then, and also at the time of writing, the only way to cross the border by train here is to use the narrow gauge Euskotren between Hendaia and Irun Colon stations.

But now, all of a sudden, change is afoot.

Spain's Ministry of Transport last week announced that a deal had been struck to not remove the 1668mm tracks at Hendaye, but instead of leaving them rusting and with bushes growing, actually run trains there. Cercanías trains are to be extended from Irun to Hendaye again, from October this year.

And that is not all.

SNCF Voyageurs TGV inOui services from Paris to Hendaye will be extended into Spain from the timetable change at the end of this year, using the standard gauge 1435mm tracks as far as Irun. Further into the future these trains, and indeed TER Nouvelle Aquitaine trains as well, could even be run as far as Donostia / San Sebastián - dual gauge track is currently being completed on this section.

Interestingly all of this seems to be a Spanish initiative, with the backing of Nouvelle Aquitaine and SNCF Réseau. The threat to remove the 1668mm tracks in Hendaye stung everyone into action, allowing everything to return to the situation it was in the 2010s, namely Renfe trains to Hendaye and SNCF ones to Irun - exactly as it should be.

As if that were not all, the changes at Irun - Hendaye are having an impact at the other end of the France - Spain border at Portbou - Cerbère (OpenRailwayMap), as this detailed and comprehensive article from Actu TER Occitanie explains.

Fewer services run between Portbou and Cerbère than used to - for two reasons. First, the language requirement for train drivers, and second that only SNCF AGC trains are allowed to Portbou. The newer Régiolis have lacked the approval. Now the need to use Régiolis medium term in Hendaye means approval is being sought for Spanish border stations (and that will benefit Portbou too), and progress with the language regime might even allow night trains to reach Portbou once more.

Of course not all is (yet?) rosy at this border. The measly 4 or 5 trains a day on the cross border high speed line from Figueres to Perpignan (OpenRailwayMap) is still a scandal, and improvements between Latour de Carol and Barcelona via Vic (OpenRailwayMap) are only going to be clear once rebuilding of the line is done. And whether Nouvelle Aquitaine and Aragon can strike a deal to finance the re-opening of the line through Canfranc (OpenRailwayMap) remains to be seen.

But simultaneous progress at two of the four international lines is excellent, and is testimony to what I repeatedly say in my #CrossBorderRail work: find the right politician who wants to act, and solutions to the technical headaches can normally be found.

Bullshit Meter: Direct trains Trieste - Beograd

Italian Transport Minister Matteo Salvini went to meet President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić, and promised there would be Trieste - Beograd direct trains. There was no commitment as to when these trains would run, or whether they would be freight or passenger trains. You can read more about it from Ferrovie here. I think the way ANSA frames it is more interesting - Salvini says Italian firms can compete with Chinese ones for contracts in Serbia.

So while of course Salvini and Vučić can have a bit of a bromance, I cannot see how direct Trieste - Beograd trains make operational sense. Beograd towards Milano, with a night train, might make sense for passengers, but not Trieste. And for freight why would you go north by train just to get to the port of Trieste, when you could go south to Thessaloniki or Piraeus? As if that were not enough, infrastructure on many parts of the route is terrible, although there is prospect for a little improvement.

All previous Bullshit Meter posts can be found here.

Good week: A little summer holiday pause

When this newsletter goes out, all being well I will be on a ICE train between Frankfurt and Hamburg, heading north for a summer holiday trip. I will be visiting friends in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Latvia, speaking at a festival in Finland and at a railway station in Germany (see Calendar, below), and travelling through Estonia, Lithuania and Poland too. A few sporadic updates will be posted on the Fediverse using the tag #CrossBorderRail.

This means 17, 24, 31 July and 7 August there will not be regular newsletters. The weekly newsletter schedule will start again on 14 August.

However I have a big project for the autumn in planning, so there will be some updates about that for subscribers, and in the autumn there will be weeks with more than one newsletter per week as well.

Also a good week: Electrification at Fuentes de Oñoro might be done this year

Finally the end is in sight for improvements on the cross border line Vilar Formoso - Fuentes de Oñoro - Salamanca (OpenRailwayMap).

Due to problems freeing up budget, and some delays to the electrification as a result of changes at the edge of Salamanca, the electrification of the route might now finally be done by the end of this year, 4 years later than planned - as reported by Trenvista.

Although given this is Spain and Portugal, it will probably take them a decade more to work out what passenger trains to run here, if any. Freight will no doubt benefit first of all.

Bad week: Nothing more than seasonal trains Muszyna - Poprad

The Poland - Slovakia border has proven to be a complex one in my #CrossBorderRail work. There are four border lines, of which three are active (my map here).

Zwardoń 🇵🇱 - Skalité-Serafínov 🇸🇰 (OpenRailwayMap) at least has passenger service year round, but the line is slow on the Polish side.

Podczerwone 🇵🇱 - Suchá Hora 🇸🇰 (OpenRailwayMap) is dismantled, and there is no prospect for its re-opening.

Lupków 🇵🇱 - Medzilaborce mesto 🇸🇰 (OpenRailwayMap) connects only small places on both sides of the border, and especially Polish side it is a long way to get to an electrified mainline - and there are only seasonal services here.

And so it ought to be Muszyna 🇵🇱 - Circ 🇸🇰 (OpenRailwayMap) with the best prospects for the future, and indeed that line is the most significant for freight. With Poprad, Prešov and Košice on the Slovak side, and Nowy Sącz, Tarnów and Kraków on the Polish side, there would be demand and even now before new infrastructure is completed south east of Kraków.

But as Rynek Kolejowy reports, currently there are no plans to make Poprad - Muszyna trains anything other than weekends-only in the summer and winter seasons. This strikes me as a missed opportunity, not least as the gap where there are no regular trains between Plaveč and Muszyna is just 14km.

Very bad week: Castex applies pressure to the Autorité de régulation des transports

He might manage to come across as more jovial than most French elite politicians, but new-ish boss of SNCF Jean Castex knows how to throw his political weight around when he sees fit.

This time it is the Autorité de régulation des transports in his sights, with a letter to its President, Thierry Guimbaud. L'informé reports about it, and I have been able to read the letter.

Read on its own, the letter is SNCF underlining all the challenges it faces were the French market further open to competition, and does so in a rather defensive tone. The interesting point of course is what it does not say, especially about what is happening beyond France's borders. The French state owned company already runs OUIGO services in Spain and plans services in Italy too, and the rules for market opening SNCF requires in those countries are precisely the sorts of frameworks Trenitalia, Renfe, Velvet, Illisto etc. need in France.

One day a more confident SNCF might emerge in this semi liberalised railway market we have in France and Europe, but we are not there yet.

Odd week: Passenger drives a microcar onto a train

I have seen efforts to turn road vehicles into rail vehicles, and road vehicles accidentally ending up on rail tracks. But in what I think is a first for me anyway, and as reported by Watson.ch, a passenger managed to drive an electric micro car onto a train between Berne and Fribourg. Sure, the Swiss are good at step free access at stations, but I am surprised no SBB staff intervened!

Photo of the week: Railbus at Jindřichovice pod Smrkem

The line used to run from here to Mirsk in Poland (OpenRailwayMap), but given the sparse population in the region I am not holding my breath this one will be re-activated.

Calendar: Photo presentation at Lindow (Mark) 9th August, 16:00

I am presenting my #CrossBorderRail work at Plattform Paradies at Lindow (Mark) on 9th August at 16:00 CEST. The best photographs from my journeys will be printed out and displayed around the garden at the station, and I will explain the lessons from each of them. Come along - it is also accessible with a Deutschlandticket!

If you would like to stay up to date with what I am doing, there are public calendars to which you can subscribe: Jon Worth - Speeches and Events ICS | Jon Worth - Travel ICS | Jon Worth - Other Rail Dates ICS And if you'd like me to speak at an event or run a workshop, contact me about that.

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All photos by Jon Worth.
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