Vall de Nuria rack railway in Catalonia

[johnnychips]

I was on a train today in Barcelona and saw an advert in Catalan for a round trip including a funicular up to 2000m for €30 inclusive. I get the idea this must be in the Pyrenees to be so high, so it must be off the Tour de Carol line. I can't remember what it was called and have tried a lot of googling. Any ideas? It's not Montserrat and I think it could be a rack railway rather than a funicular as such.

I really need to sort out my rail trips before I leave England!

 

[30907]

This one I presume - there was an article in TR Europe some years ago.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vall_de_Núria_Rack_Railway

 

[johnnychips]

You star! Now I can look up the trains to Ribes

 

[30907]

If you haven't found it already, the timetable is/was on the Cercanias/Rodalies website. You might be able to find a .pdf of the excursion leaflet too.

 

[johnnychips]

Thanks I did it today and a very nice ride it was. The frequency of the trains from Barcelona to Ribes and back are not evenly spaced and no thought is given to connections. The Nuria line is great but the things to do when you get there take less than an hour, so I had a very good five mile walk to Queralbs, the next station down and got the train back from there.

 

[Groningen]

The german and spainish trainwebsite do not give any trains from Barcelona to Ripoll/Ribes and more important Latour de Carol.

 

[Chris999999]

RENFE do. You need to look for trains to Ribes de Freser in the Cercanías section. (La Tor de Querol-Enveig for La Tour de Carol)

DB won't show these "commuter" trains.

 

[johnnychips]

Just in case anybody is thinking of doing this, you can get the tickets from the new machines at Barcelona Sants - and you certainly won't want to queue for the ticket office. Choose 'Bitlets combinats' (sorry if my Catalan is a bit wrong) and a lot of stuff for Port Aventura comes up, which confused me. However there are three tiny arrows bottom right on the touch screen. If you keep pressing these you will eventually get to 'Vall de Nuria'.

It costs €30 and gives you a ticket and what looks like a receipt. The ticket will work the barrier at Sants, but keep the 'receipt' as it will be collected at the barrier at the rack railway at Ribes-Enllac. On the way back, the ticket cannot be validated, and indeed the guard on the train wrote all over it, but it did work the exit barrier at Placa Catalunya with no problem.