The train is winning over the plane in the Madrid-Barcelona corridor, although traveling on rails at 300 km/h increasingly has more similarities with doing so above the clouds. First there were variable prices determined by algorithms based on demand, then the entry of competition that made tickets cheaper at unthinkable prices and now trains arrive with a seating configuration similar to that of airplanes, with three seats per row.
Yesterday Renfe debuted the new S106 trains, manufactured by Talgo and also called Avril. Instead of the usual two seats on either side of the aisle (two and one preferred), Talgo has designed these convoys with two seats on one side and three on the other, as if it were an airplane. The first day it caught the attention of travelers who were using it for the first time and it was new, but it remains to be seen if passengers end up accepting it well or if it is a source of annoyance among passengers. When the person next to the window wants to go to the bathroom or the cafeteria, they have no choice but to interrupt their seatmates’ work or nap in order to reach the aisle. And whoever gets a table with the seats facing each other must spend the trip with five other people.
With the incorporation of the extra row of seats, the Avril becomes Renfe’s high-speed train with the greatest capacity, reaching 581 seats on the Avlo service, the low-cost AVE between Barcelona and Madrid. Or rather, between Figueres Vilafant and the Spanish capital, since it includes a stop in Girona, Camp de Tarragona and Lleida, where from now on two Avlo will stop per day in each direction. Although it is a 17% increase in capacity compared to the other model used by Renfe for its low-cost service, it is still very far from the thousand passengers that Ouigo moves with the double-composition trains that it runs at rush hour between the two large cities. Spanish.
While the Avlo Barcelona-Madrid is reinforced with two new trains, another eight also entered service yesterday on the AVE from Madrid to Asturias and Galicia. It was a troubled start, as a breakdown made the first of the trains arrive late before reaching Ourense and it had to be propelled by the tail locomotive.
As for the Talgo train, despite being the same as the Barcelona-Madrid one, it presents differences as it has an AVE category instead of being the low-cost Renfe brand. The most striking are some screens that do not exist on the AVE and that on the trains that go to the north of Spain can be seen on the head of each seat. In the seats with tables, six screens accumulate as if they were tablets installed in the center.
In the case of the classic high-speed service, it has priority carriages in which there are two seats on either side of the aisle, and the opportunity to travel without anyone next to you, for which many people paid a premium in exchange, disappears. of more tranquility. What they do maintain on the AVE is the bar, which is very spacious, something that does not exist in the Avlo service to put more seats in its place.
The premiere of the new trains is a milestone because it has been 14 years since Renfe’s high-speed rolling stock has been renewed. It should not have taken so long, but the manufacturing process has been longer than expected and the years of delay have led the public company to claim compensation from Talgo for the delay and the associated loss of profits. As is usual in the trains from the Basque factory, it is characterized by having variable gauge, which allows them to run on high-speed lines as well as conventional Iberian gauge lines.
Renfe has purchased thirty units of the new Talgo Avril, of which ten will be used for international services with which the public operator intends to reach Paris one day. Until now, while the French infrastructure manager prevents Renfe from reaching the French capital and only allows them to reach Lyon and Marseille, the lines that connect Barcelona with the south of France circulate with the first high-speed trains that Renfe acquired, as well by Talgo, released on the Madrid-Seville AVE in 1992.
