Summer Train disruptions on Granada Bobadilla line. Granada - Madrid & Granada Sevilla

Thanks for the great post. This answers a lot of questions many of us had.

I have been following this situation, we arrive in Madrid Thursday and planned on using the trains.
We have an alternative plan for renting a car and will do so before we leave the US.
Thank you for your update.

I was surprised and happy i stumbled on this. I was attempting to book a train from Granada to Sevilla and renfe showed no trains. I figured I was trying to book to far out for a June trip. Went to Pentrabax and was able to book. The ticket had a notation at the bottom of a bus being involved... so I guess they knew the drill and im now breathing easier.
Wish the train system in the US offered refunds if they delay your trip!

I hope they will finish the construction before our trip in October, although it would be too late to alter our tickets since we will most likely be purchasing them in July. I was hoping for as little stops/changes between Madrid and Granada, but hopefully the train and bus station are close enough to each other.

FYI, we took the train from Ronda to Granada less than 2 weeks ago and the disruption is really no big deal. When you reach the point where there is construction, they simply unload the passengers onto tour busses. We ended up arriving in Granada 40 minutes early.

FYI, the best website to purchase train tickets in Spain is Petrabax. Cheapest I found and their people are wonderful about responding to e-mails.

Eileen: You are from my hometown: Canandaigua, NY. What a small world. Have a great trip to Spain!

Hi, thanks for all the input.
We were panning to travel night trains in October from:
Barcelona to Grenada
Madrid to Lisbon
Lisbon to Paris
Your info are the best we have found so far.
All of our trip in Spain is now disrupted.

Would ANYONE have info on how this is affecting night trains? We know that they are bypassing this and it now takes 20h to get from point A to point B, but we were looking for ways to make our timeline not change so much.
Also, would ANYONE know when this ends?
thank you

msuelarson, I'm so glad you didn't have any troubles! We were worried that it would complicate our transport, but it sounds like it was really easy to navigate. I haven't looked at Petrabax, but I will definitely do that. I've looked at renfe.com and Loco2.com, but nothing else.

We took the train from Granada to Seville Santa Justa station in mid-May.

At the Granada train station, they arranged for bus transportation for the first half of the trip to a nice new train station somewhere in the midpoint 'Antequera', then we just hopped on the train waiting at the station for the second half of the trip.

It took about 3 hours of bus/train ride from Granada to Seville Santa Justa, which was about the same time as advertised on the train schedule and you can enjoy the beautiful scenery on the bus.

The whole process was pretty straightforward.

Hope this helps.

We are interested in book the Granada to Barcelona overnight train at the end of September. It may be a little early for the schedule to be posted but I don't see a train scheduled for any days in July or August.

- Does anyone know if Renfe is still running that route?
- Why is it that Rail Europe does not list the train bus combo for from Granada to Seville?

Thank you!

" Why is it that Rail Europe does not list the train bus combo for from Granada to Seville?"

Rail Europe doesn't list all routes, and often marks up tickets that it does sell. Your best source of accurate information is the agency that operates the train - in this case, RENFE itself: http://www.renfe.com/EN/viajeros/

marisang1212 - As advised, look to the accurate source, the RENFE website.The TrenHotel schedules can be seen up to 2nd August at present.

We also took the train from Benaojan to Granada (same line as Ronda) a couple of weeks ago. The transfer from train to bus was very efficient, took less than 10 minutes, and the bus made good time to Granada. Our only problem was the confusion when we first got on the train. We thought there was a problem with our tickets and even though my husband speaks some Spanish, it was not enough to figure out the situation. it was not until someone told my husband in Spanish that everyone had to transfer, that we figured out there was a construction-related interruption of service.

...Why is it that Rail Europe does not list the train bus combo for from Granada to Seville?....

The big reason is because that is not a regular schedule. The normal schedule is a train through till Seville but summer train maintenance is forcing the use of a bus around the construction site. By Fall should be back to train.

Just posted on Renfe site 2 days ago:
(Google translated)

Valencia, July 23, 2015 (Renfe).

Renfe supply adapts and modifies schedules trains, Middle Distance and Long Distance linking Valencia with Castellón, Barcelona and Granada from August 1 to September 6, during the first phase of construction of the third lane will carry out Adif. Later there will be a second phase of work whose completion date is scheduled for December 14.

During these works Trenhotel circulation Barcelona-Valencia-Granada is deleted....

The post above is incomplete, here is the rest of the news posted on Renfe on July 23, 2015-- especially helpful if you will be traveling from Barcelona &/or Valencia to Granada.

Con motivo de estas obras se suprime la circulación del Trenhotel Barcelona-Valencia-Granada. Los clientes viajarán en Ave desde Valencia y Barcelona hasta Antequera para transbordar hacia Granada por carretera con el servicio de autobuses previsto por Renfe para todos los clientes con origen y destino Granada (VER CUADRO DE HORARIOS ANEXO).

TRANSLATION:

Due to these works, the Trenhotel
Barcelona-Valencia-Granada route has been suspended. Customers will travel
on Ave (train) from Valencia and Barcelona to Antequera then transfer
to bus toward Granada with the bus service provided by Renfe for all
customers going to and from Granada (SEE TABLE OF SCHEDULE Attached).

Here is the train/bus schedule provided on the Renfe (effective August 2nd): http://tinyurl.com/Bus-Train-Schedule

Thanks itcsburnett for the useful post. Seems that in spite of the Great Recession and Spain's Great Housing Meltdown, the government is intent on spreading AVE's benefits wider.

I'd like to second another poster's question, anyone know when the disruption is projected to end?

And thanks to other posters, it seems not to be a big deal as RENFE has its act together coordinating motor coaches with train schedules at Antequera Santa Ana.

Thank you

Rap.tors,

I'd like to second another poster's question, anyone know when the disruption is projected to end?

Unfortunately, no one knows when this project will end. I just called Renfe, because I had other questions, & I specifically
asked the same question (as you) & I was told that they don't know.

Buses are well coordinated with the train arrivals and are super comfortable and take only 1 hr to Granada from Antequera-Santa Ana. I just took one last week

We are in Granada now, Sept 18th and the train station is still closed to all train traffic. So there is bus service from Granda to Antequerra to catch trains. The Granada locals do not know when train service will resume, they estimate sometime in 2016. Having observed the construction during the bus ride from Antequerra to Granada I would tend to agree with that. Anyone travelling to Granada by train before 2016 should assume part of your journey will be by bus. The bus takes about an hour and is a comfortable modern bus. For those planning to go in 2016 check the Renfe site frequently. They currently estimate it may be done by late 2015 but to me that seems unlikely as they have not laid the track yet in most places. Good luck.

I am intrigued to read the previous post as I just returned from a trip to Spain. On September 11th, I was in Granada and had a pre-purchased RENFE ticket to Ronda. When I got to the Granada train station (fully open that day), the talk was not of construction but of a train strike or slow down that day. There was great confusion as to whether I would be allowed to take the bus to Antequera and then train to Ronda as planned. I got help from a fellow passenger who spoke both Spanish and English. Up until five minutes before the bus left Granada it was unclear whether they would let me board. In the end, I was allowed to board the bus to Antequera. We rode in comfort on a bus directly to Antequera where there is a beautiful new train station. My train connection to Ronda was delayed a half hour but arrived and got me to Ronda without a problem. The scenery along this route was beautiful. Good luck to all travelers.