Today we’re going to be taking a ride on the Renfe-SNCF en Cooperatión train, running at speed from Paris to Barcelona! This trip will be on an iconic TGV Duplex unit, a double-decker high-speed train. Hope you enjoy!
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Journey Details:
Origin: Paris Gare de Lyon
Destination: Barcelona-Sants
Company: Renfe-SNCF en Cooperatión
Train: SNCF TGV 2N2 (Euroduplex)
Accommodation: Première Classe Seat (1st)
Distance: 675 miles / 1086 kilometres
Price: €172.50 (£144.30 / $208.20)
Time: 6h44m + 18L
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26 Comments
1:48 fs trenitalia are owned by italian government, .italo is privately owned
The small sections are for telephoning…
Great video i love your content, i would recomend in spain the routes of Madrid-Barcelona Madrid-Santiago and Madrid-Malaga.
I was suprised to see that your TGV apparently used the conventional tracks between Nîmes and Montpellier. Because the TGV-style extension covering this leg (as a first step to all-TGV standard all the way to Perpignan), aka Contournement Nîmes – Montpellier, has been operational for a few years.
Great video as always. Sounds like a great trip to do.
Please do more Spain's network. Excellent video of international service. Hopefully better services by separate operators from 2023..
Thanks for the review – I agree with you on the interior veering towards tha garish side, but the lamps are a nice touch. It will be interesting to see what improvements competition on the route will bring.
i took this train three weeks ago from montpellier saint-roch to paris gare de lyon. the views were breathtaking. im never flying with ryanair again!
It's a nightmare traveling by train this summer in Europe
Totally agree with your assessment on this trip. It's a real shame this cooperation doesn't run anywhere near the quality of the Paris to Frankfurt/Stuttgart services. In terms of the design: I had a funny encounter recently on a TGV into Frankfurt. An older couple was talking about their trip from Paris and remarked how the TGV looked somewhat worn out. They assumed it must have been due to its age which they estimated to be about 30 years. Ironically, the ICE they'd taken on their journey to Paris was actually older than this Euroduplex from 2012. I'm not a big fan of double-deck high speed trains to begin with, but I'll never understand why SNCF kept up with that interior design for so long. It somehow manages to look older than the original PSE interior. Contrast that with the awesome new Oceane design. That makes it look like an entirely different vehicle.
I believe the sofa at 11:52 if for making phone calls, in the Madrid-Barcelona Ouigo service, using the same type of trains they have a sign about that
Don’t think much of it’s first class,
The sofa near the toilet at first seems odd. But my guess is, it is for parents who take their little children to the toilet.
Thanks for the ride !!! 🇺🇾
11:52 On TGV your are suppose to take phone call on the plaforme, Aka out of the passenger compartment of the car, like on this sofa 🙂 if you have a craying baby it can also be use
Nice trip report! However, Trenitalia is definitely not a private operator!
I love trains in general but the Euroduplex has a special place in my heart, as it was my first introduction to the magic of good rail transit. They opperate between my two home cities of Casablanca and Tangier, Morocco. I’ve been on them countless times and it’s always been a great experience.
French trains are appalling. The attitude of French and Spanish operators towards interrail passes is transparent. They use "reservation fees" to keep "riff raff" off their high speed trains. France and Spain thereby benefit from being in the interrail network but shoulder no responsibility. Compare and contrasts with Great Britain or Germany. I am a fluent french speaker. I have tried over and over again to use the SNCF reservation system. I would like to travel to Spain from Germany by train (with my family). I am unable to find trains on many calendar days. They simply do not show up in the offers which are presented like airline fares would be. Or they are ludicrously expensive, even months in advance. Compare and contrast to DB (Germany) or even GB. DB will show all available trains for a given service. You can compare to a timetable and see they all appear. Every single option. Booking with DB is incredibly easy. Fares are presented clearly. All options are offered at the end, including often cheap upgrades to 1st class. Even GB is better. We used interrail in GB as a family this summer. We had no problems whatsoever, even travelling on a rail strike day. We need integrated rail systems in Europe. We've had the EU for 70 years, and a large enough EU to develop proper, integrated cross border rail transport for 50 of those. Instead, long distance rail transport is more difficult and worse now than it was 100 years ago. A large part of the reason for this are intransigent national rail systems like those of France and Spain. And a completely useless EU that actively makes rail transport worse, not better, by foisting privatisation on national networks.
I did this exact trip on August 2nd and was also on coach 12, but seat 115! I had never travelled 1st class before and I guess I kind of expected it to be similar to that of an airplanes' 1st class (never done it but seen enough on YT). Bit of a disappointment in that regard (food was probably the biggest susprise, although I was ready in any case) but the seat was still as comfy as I expected and the journey rather pleasant but long
When I rode on that train, people used the sofas in-between carriages if they wanted some peace and quiet outside the sometimes noisy carriages
A great review!! Thanks for informing us about the interesting history of the beautiful Gare de Lyon. I've passed through it on the same route down to Barcelona but never seen it so crowded! Maybe they'll expand it again or hopefully it is just a seasonal crowd.
I do love the views of the coast on the last leg of the journey. I recall thr flamingoes too hahaah! Sete and Montpellier are hidden gems!
I concur with your views on the train. It is a good service but room for improvement on food offerings and luggage. I always had good experiences though but was always curious about that sofa outside the toilets too! Only sat on them once or twice but pretty convenient for a break from your neighbour or waiting for the toilets!
Thanks for bringing back the happy memories of Paris and down to Barcelona! I look forward to your Spain videos and can't wait for them! Hope I can go again soon 😃
As someone who lives near Perpignan the problem with these services hazs always been the tiny number of through trains (for instance it's currently impossible to travel between Perpignan and Barcelona for a day trip), there are currently only 4 a day. The other problem is fares, with the toll for using the trans-Albères tunnel so high that a trip to Barcelona is an expensive option, particularly now that the autoroutes on the Spanish side of the frontier are now (or at least for the time being!) toll free. As i live only a short drive from the frontier and want to use the train what I tend to do is drive across to Figueres-Vilafant (which is a park-and-drive station) and take the train on from there . Fares are substantially lower and you get the option of taking an AVE as the station is now the terminus for many of the AVE services from Madrid. Oh and by the way, once the high-speed link from Montpellier to Perpignan is finished (I'll probably be dead by then!!) those coastal views will be a thing of the past with the line taking an inland route through the Corbières with a lot of it in tunnel. It may even miss out Perpignan altogether with a dedicated TGV station near Rivesaltes, although there's a lot of pressure here for that not to happen!
High Speed lines in Spain much better and longuer than French ones. France is delayed to continue TGV lines down to Perpignan and reduce trip among Barcelona, Paris and other European cities like we had in past with overnight services TrenHotel Barcelona to Paris, Zurich and Milan.
5:24 tgv vigirail
I went in it to bezia
Did the Nimes run a few years ago, and using GDL next month for a weekend in Nice.