Renfe-SNCF boosts Barcelona as a railway 'hub'

Renfe and its French counterpart, SNCF, began working together to connect Spain and France 25 years ago through Renfe-SNCF en cooperación, a company 50% owned by both operators. The result has been 13 million international trips, of which 6.5 million have been made by high-speed rail, which was adopted ten years ago with AVE and INOUI trains and meant abandoning the popular train-hotels that connected with Paris.

Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nîmes, Montpellier, Béziers, Narbonne, or Perpignan are some of the French cities that this railway union allows connecting from Barcelona. In this network, the Catalan capital plays a prominent role, centralizing connections from Tarragona, Lleida, Zaragoza, Madrid, Valladolid, Valencia, Alicante, Seville, or Malaga to the neighboring country.

In his first interview since taking office in September 2020, the general director of Renfe-SNCF, David Cortés, points out that Barcelona acts like Paris in centralizing journeys coming from other cities and foreign countries, arriving by plane or train. Just as the French capital is another stop for journeys that continue to other destinations by train, the Catalan capital behaves similarly. "They are neuralgic points," Cortés explains. In the case of the routes offered by Renfe-SNCF, a traveler coming from other Spanish cities has to stop in Barcelona to catch the connection to France.

Just as the French capital is another stop for journeys that continue to other destinations, the Catalan capital behaves similarly

Currently, there are two daily frequencies—round trip—connecting Barcelona with Paris and Lyon. This figure will double to four next year. Of these, two trains will go to Paris, one to Lyon, and one to Marseille. Likewise, Madrid, Tarragona, and Zaragoza will once again be connected to France with the train that travels to Marseille, a route that had been eliminated with the COVID crisis. One of the routes that could not survive the virus was the one to Toulouse, which already had low demand before the pandemic and which the railway company has decided to suppress.

With the routes that will be reached next year, Renfe-SNCF will still not have reached the offer that existed in 2019, but Cortés does not rule out accelerating the recovery if there is sufficient demand.

The coronavirus has also caused changes in traveler behavior. According to Cortés, users previously preferred to go from end to end—from Barcelona to Paris—but now they are opting to stay at intermediate and closer stops. This is the case of Nîmes, the destination chosen to present Renfe-SNCF's plans for 2022. The city, very fond of bullfighting and flamenco, is registering a good trend in its connection with Barcelona, especially from Girona, approaching the number of travelers it had in 2019.

Renfe and SNCF, in negotiations to extend cooperation agreement

The contract that regulates the service jointly offered by Renfe and SNCF ends next year. The two operators are in negotiations to decide whether to extend it and, if so, how and for how long.

Despite railway liberalization and the competition that both operators have on routes such as Barcelona-Madrid—with AVLO and Ouigo—Cortés hopes that the cooperation agreement will continue and "they can celebrate their golden anniversary after reaching their silver one."

As a sample of the state of negotiations, the executive points out that Renfe and SNCF could have rescinded the contract at the end of this year, coinciding with the start of liberalization, but they have decided to continue and, for that reason, more frequencies have been programmed for 2022. Likewise, he gives as an example the cooperation that SNCF has with other operators, such as the German Deutsche Bahn, with whom it also competes on some routes.