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Wrap-up re: Is 11 minutes enough time to transfer in Barcelona Sants?

Posted by (northern CA) on

Thanks to helpful posters here in the RS forum I have been looking at the Rodalies suburban transit schedules for getting to the towns outside Barcelona, and comparing them with the quirky results that the Renfe website gives for its trains along the same routes.

The Rxx suburban trains on my travel dates are indeed cheaper and better timed and only a little slower than the Avant, Euromed, and Talgo trains that Renfe offers but they are only going to work for me if I can manage to get off of one and onto another within Sants station in 11 minutes or less -- if I miss the transfer and have to wait another hour or so for the next, I will have been better off just going with the Renfe suggestions.

I have never been in Sants station before, and my Spanish is intermediate at best, my Catalan less than that.
So, do you think I will be able to make such a quick transfer, or is Sants so big and confusing that I shouldn't even try?

Posted by
2940 posts

... you should have enough time providing it's not rush hour and the trains are on time, if you arrive late you might loose the transfer. And most importantly, you should know by heart what to do and where to go without hesitation...

So... when exactly would you be arriving, from where and in which train? and where do you intend to go from Sants, at what time and in which train? If you share this info, I'll do my best to give you an "action plan" so you don't waste time just because you've never been there before ;))))

Posted by
2447 posts

What I learned, just a little too late, was that all the relevant local/cercanias Rodalies trains use tracks 13 and 14, which share a platform. So, if you are a commuter and have a pass or multiple tickets, you can indeed easily manage a 10 minute transfer from one Rxx train to another Rxx train, because you either get on right where you got off, or you walk ten paces to the other track. There are screens listing the trains right there on the platform.

I learned this because I was standing there watching, after having spent more money (but not a lot more) than I needed on a Euromed that I took for one stop from Tarragona to Sants, then going upstairs to the ticket windows and getting a general ticket for the Rodalies up to Girona.

While I was looking around near the ticket windows, an older man with a cane approached me and asked in a hard-to-follow (for me) Catalan voice if I was going to Girona because he could take me there by car. He had a business card, so he must be legit. I told him in my hard-to-follow (for him) Castellano that I already had a ticket for the R11. He wouldn't take no for an answer, at first, actually grabbing my elbow to usher me towards the street. I found it a little funny, but I probably wouldn't have if he'd been bigger and I'd been younger or a woman. I actually wondered how he knew that I was going to Girona -- did he know me somehow? But then I realized that most any foreign tourist standing near the cercanias ticket windows of Sants station are more likely than not to be going to Girona. If I was more fluent, I would have tried to bargain with him just to find out what an off-the-books ride does cost.

In any case, if I'd gone with him then I would have missed the show on the train, where a family made use of the facing seat rows to put on a full picnic-on-the-fly followed by cards and board games that I'd never seen before. You appreciate the preferente seats that much more when you have the occasional bit of ruido on a local carriage. No one is going to sleep through those ringtones, that's for certain.

Posted by
2940 posts

So you made it then. Glad to hear. I hope you enjoyed Girona.

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