International Railroad Discussion > Barcelona, Spain information request

If anyone could offer insight into railroad-related activities in Barcelona, I would appreciate the information. I will be downtown, in a central location, with a few free days to explore. I have no familiarity with the geography, unfortunately. And no car....

     -MirandaDepot

Hi - I had a few days in Barcelona in 2014. It is well worth visiting  Estacion de Franca, the terminus station. Very impressive building and a variety of passenger trains. The other major station in the city is regretably underground and pretty dismall. Whilst there, we just took a trip on the local trains to an outer station to watch, eg Castelldefels. Hope this helpds, Chris uk.

Unless you're a racing driver, you don't really want a car in downtown Barca.  Local transit will take you anywhere and good phots at the main station,  assuming security concerns haven't restricted access.

I was there several years ago and got to take a good look.

There's a port in Barcelona that has a decent amount of intermodal traffic from the broad gauge lines coming in. It makes for some interesting viewing and you can watch it from up above at the fort/cemetary on the hill.

Also, you can ride the FGC out to Montserrat and take the rack railway up to the monostary. Interestingly, the FGC is meter gauge and has quite excellent rail service, along with some relatively heavy (for Europe) freight trains on their main line hauling bulk aggregates. Usually 3-5 freights a day from what I saw.

There's a fairly large amount of passenger rail traffic too (I belive the high speed rail AVE is there now too) so there is a lot to see. The metro is an excellent way to get around, but note that if it rains really heavily the tunnels under the city for the RENFE can flood, resulting in service cancellations and messing up your travel plans.

Also, there's a railway museum down the coast to the southwest in Sitges I believe.

General tip is to avoid food in the Las Ramblas (central downtown) part of Barcelona. It's a total tourist trap. When I was there it was terrible. Make sure you go to Guell Park and Sagrada Familia as well :)

Enjoy the trip!