Trains and other things: El Escorial, Miranda de Ebro

Today, my journey continues from Madrid back to Barcelona. I have planned to take the route through El Escorial and Miranda de Ebro.

Cuatro torres view from my hotel room

Chamartin station

As I arrived to the station, it turned out that there is a strike and only few of trains are in operation

The next train to El Escorial is in 30 min

3 min before departure - still no announcement of the platform

I'm taking the Cercanias train to El Escorial as it is located near Madrid

Files needed...

Inside the commuter train to El Escorial. It was full when I left Madrid.

Arriving to El Escorial

As I have planned to be here earlier, my plans to visit this place had to be adjusted.

My plan was to visit Monasterio del Escorial which is located about 2km from the station. As I got less time for my stay here, I had to take a taxi (again). The good thing was that there was a taxi available outside the station and it was not expensive.

From Wikipedia: "The Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, commonly known as Monasterio del Escorial, is a historical residence of the King of Spain, in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, about 45 kilometres northwest of the Spanish capital, Madrid. It is one of the Spanish royal sites and has functioned as a monastery, basilica, royal palace, pantheon, library, museum, university, school and hospital.

I only had time to walk around the building, then I went back to the station - this time by foot.

Cuatro torres seen from El Escorial

Little prince

El Escorial station opened 1861 together with the line Madrid-Hendaye

The station is operated by C-3a Cercanias, Regional and MD trains

I'm going to take Media Distancia train to Miranda de Ebro. As on many commuter train stations there are ticket gate.

After talking to the ticket office and showing my reservation for MD train, I got this entrance ticket. Note that it says "No valido para viajar".

Renfe Class 465 Civia

Class 449 as MD

El Escorial viewed through a dirty window of MD train

I'm now travelling on línea General del Norte or línea Imperial between Madrid and Hendaye. It is 641km long and has the Iberian 1668mm track gauge.

Avila

Muralla de Ávila

I'm travelling with MD 18061 which is a service from Madrid Principe Pio to Irun. The whole trip takes 7h59min which is not a middle distance to me. There is no restaurant on the train, only some vending machines where I could purchase this product.

Crossing the high speed line to Medina del Campo

Some sections of the line are in parallell with the high speed line to Valladolid and Leon.

S114 at Valladolid

Many freight trains at Venta de Baños

At Palencia the train is changing direction

The new high speed line to Burgos is still under construction

Burgos Rosa de Lima station

Changing gauge facility right after the station

Vending machines and space for bicycles

MD Class 449 at Miranda de Ebro station

Class 130

Miranda de Ebro is an important junction station for the two railway lines Madrid-Irun and Castejon-Bilbao.

Not sure what was happening here, but the previous Alvia train to Barcelona was much delayed and the passengers had to change to another train here.

Another Alvia train left westbound

Regional train Class 470

Renfe Class 311 diesel shunting locomotive

253 060 Traxx F140 DC Iberian gauge version

253 047

Basically the trip I've made so far today

Artefacts

Renfe Class 333.3 is a six-axle diesel locomotive manufactured between 2000-2005 by Alstom. Some components were reused of the older version of Class 333 from the 70's - these locomotives were manufactured by Nohab and were very similar to Swedish TMZ.

This is my next train back to Barcelona

Talgo factory

The train is continuing on the Madrid-Irun railway until Altsasu where the railway to Irun continues here to the left, while my train takes the line to Pamplona and Zaragoza.

Volkswagen Navarra factory in Pamplona

Acueducto de Noáin

CAF Mk.5a for TransPennine Express in UK

Shortly after leaving Zaragoza the S130 train is changing from Iberian to standard gauge and continues the rest of the trip to Barcelona on the high speed railway