1964-2015. Expreso Estrella Costa Brava (Barcelona-Madrid): Final Run

Last run of the last overnight & economical express train in Spain: the Estrella Costa Brava between Barcelona-Sants and Madrid-Chamartín, disrupted on the 6th of April, 2015 after 51 years of service.

A very sad journey and a terrible decision with harmful consequences for the public service in Spain: the Estrella still had a high demand and was the only alterantive to the expensive high-speed AVE trains between Madrid and Barcelona. Not only it was comfortable and cheap - it also allowed traveling at night (so you could save one hotel stay), arriving early at destination (even earlier than any AVEs) and enjoying things like travelling with your friends, talking with young travellers from all over the world, seeing the dawn in the Mediterranean sea from your bed or from the restaurant car. Or simply sleep and relax.

Renfe no longer cares about "normal" and economical trains, but only about high-speed AVE trains. Spain is disrupting and shutting down conventional and regional trains while constructing more (loss-making) high-speed lines per inhabitant than any other countries in the world. All promotion and investments go to the high-speed trains. This makes no sense at all, and is causing an astronomical public debt, although Renfe does not care about it because it is not Renfe's debt but Adif's (the network authority, which is no longer integrated into Renfe, although both companies are state-owned... even if there are plans to make Renfe a private company somewhen).

Of course, Renfe earns more money through the high-speed trains than through the conventional services, although the cost of operation of the latter is much lower and no new tracks at all are required. In the meanwhile, this already-existing infrastructure gets fewer maintenance year after year, and towns where the high-speed trains do not stop at are losing more and more connections due to this terrible policy which is turning the train in Spain into an exclusive service which no longer serves normal people for their daily needs - it rather serves businessmen and politicians, who can now avoid taking planes, while it makes normal people travel by bus (a more polluting, less comfortable, less usable and slower transport system) or simply not travel.

Of course, ALSA bus company operates several services every night between Madrid and Barcelona, and may be celebrating right now Renfe's decision to supress the Estrella Costa Brava train.

Btw, many people were reported to meet at the Madrid-Chamartín terminal to see off the inverse train, even if Renfe had not informed officially about the supression of this service (the unavailability of tickets for later dates and some internal information filtered made it evident). On the contrary, not so many people met at the Barcelona-Sants terminal, maybe because the platforms cannot be accessed freely (a valid train ticket is required - this does not happen at Madrid-Chamartín) and maybe because being an undergound station makes it less attractive...