Thread by @richardavsmith

It's Day 7 of my #SouthernRailways trip, and I'm heading from Lisbon 🇵🇹 to Seville 🇪🇸.

I've really enjoyed my time in Portugal, I need to come here more often.

You can find the other days of my trip here:

https://twitter.com/richardavsmith/status/1514643290024521735?t=EUP1ZHzd7oZ3Gml2DWpaAg&s=19

A pleasant walk to Pragal station, spotting the morning commuter traffic into Lisbon heading towards the bridge, and a TAAG Angola Airways jet. (Always love a dot on the front end of a jet.)

A trip on Fertagus from Pragal to Lisbon Entrecampos station.

This private operator, separate from CP, operates trains from Lisbon over the 25th of April Bridge to the Setúbal Peninsula, I believe since 1999.

It runs every ten minutes in the morning peak, but was very busy.

Changing at Lisbon Entrecampos onto a CP commuter train. (The Fertagus don't go all the way to Oriente.)

If I'd been delayed, I could've caught my next train here, but I wanted to start from Lisbon Oriente if possible.

Lisbon Oriente. I like the unorthodox design, but it just doesn't do what a station needs to do in multiple ways, and its hard not to compare the structure of its design to Berlin Hauptbahnhof.

My Alfa Pendular, AP 180, arrives from Porto. It will take me all the way to Faro, on Portugal's south coast.

It's route with surprisingly few trains (maybe 4-5 a day). I suspect this is issues w/ fleet size.

I've done this journey (and Lisbon to Porto) before, but northbound.

Yes, Option 1 won out. Ta to all that voted!

(It is the more varied and interesting option, to be fair, with safer connections/fallbacks.)

https://twitter.com/richardavsmith/status/1516152872295141380?t=pqJOl3CtamIRNdwDlHUIOQ&s=19

Interior. Note the (out of use) coin operated locking points on the baggage rack.

It's like San Francisco, but with better transit.

And the famous bridge actually goes somewhere.

And has trains on it.

Face it, Lisbon is better than San Francisco.

(Honestly, it's better than most European cities; and I love any city where commuter ferries are used daily.)

Crossing the 25th of April Bridge again, over the River Tagus.

The route (Linha do Sul) I'm travelling on was linked to the bridge in 2003. Previously, the trains went to Barreiro, from where you would take a ferry to Lisbon.

The line from Lisbon to Faro is a mix of double and single track; but fully electrified.

I'm curious how they got trains across the Tagus (if at all) before the lines were extended over the bridge (ferry? Long way round?).

Feels like it would've been a very divided network.

Turns out I've already been on some of the ferries that used to do that route:

https://twitter.com/pzgomes/status/1516688366816878592?t=PBHY0b_AzqWZswtEEp8rng&s=19

At Pinhal Novo we rejoin the original line.

There's my answer about the alternative route before the bridge; freight used the Vendas Novas line.

(Image from European Railway Atlas by M G Ball, which I strongly recommend buying. The digital version is especially handy!)

europeanrailwayatlas.com

A gently scenic ride south.

Ridiculously impractical plug location; high risk of damaging it when getting up or moving your legs.

Turns out the luggage locks do work still.

Tunes. We're now joining the line between Lagos and Vila Real de St Antonio, also served by regional trains.

I can't see these signs without thinking of the new signs in Rail Alphabet 2 font going up on Northern and elsewhere.

Faro: beyond here, everything is new for me.

Turns out CP can do decent-ish buffers if they want to. @RateMyBuffers

This station, like many stations I've seen, has been comprehensively refurbished since my last visit, though train info was poor.

Someone asked me on board if it was the train to Vila Real. I said probably?

Interior. Oddly, there's at least two types of seats, even though there's not obviously a first class.

English is concise.

Love the CP logo in these door handles.

Faro Airport.

Faro: these photos can't really do it justice, I thought it was lovely when I visited a few years ago.

The line runs parallel with the coast; this is still the Atlantic, but keep going this way and it becomes the Mediterranean soon enough.

The landscape is marshy, which reminded me a lot of the coast of my home county Essex. Though warmer, and a bit less bleak.

There's a lot of holidaymakers onboard, making good use of the route to avoid a drive. I approve! (Traditional beach holidays can be very road dependent.)

Newport (Portugal).

Flat.

Orange groves.

Monte Gordo.

Bridge across the Guadiana to Spain.

Vila Real de St Antonio: End of the Line.

I do like these stainless steel cars, I believe based on a Budd Company design. (Go birds!)

The station design at Vila Real de St Antonio is a gorgeous and unexpected bit of art deco.

@BeautyOfTranspt

In order to see the end of the line, I took a longer route to the Harbour.

I then also stumbled across old platforms by the ferry to Spain; presumably passenger trains used to go right here. (The police station, under refurbishment, looks like it used to be the railway station.)

WikiBuild: The building that anyone can edit.

And then my luck ran out..

They've changed their timetable.

Not sure when, but the 13:30 is gone, it's now at 13:00.

I thought I had time, so I took a long route from the station.

Next ferry is at 15:00. It works, but the bus from the other side is also at 15:00 so I'll have to kill time there too.

Oh, and I'll have 45 minutes in Huelva. Damn.

There is no website for the ferry online that I could find, so I relied on tourist info and expat websites.

Looking at these now, I'm wondering if it's a failure to state time zone, as the 2021 one (right) does say whose time it is.

Kicking myself, as I double checked the timezone as a potential issue.

Also, @EuropeanRailTT, you might find the screenshot there useful if you need a recent experience of what the times are.

The ferry actually turned up, but it was going on lunch break. (The crossing that was arriving wasn't on the timetable, so I was in hope they were just running late.)

But still, damn, I definitely could have made the 13:00 if I'd known.

Ah well; let's make lemonade.

I explored Villa Real de St Antonio; it's a lovely centre. You can tell that a lot of its business is tourists popping over to/from Spain, though!

Spain, on the opposite bank.

An hour and a half later; it's time to sail.

A lovely crossing.

Into Ayamonte.

Where I thought I had a lot of time to wander.

I thought I did. I even sat down in a square to rest, feeling pretty knackered and bemoaning that my phone was stuck on a Portuguese network no matter how far I walked.

I was really knackered.

And then I ran, because I realised I'd fucked up a second time today, probably thanks to not getting enough sleep.

My bus was at 17:00. It was not 15:55 now. It was 16:55.

Mistakes breed mistakes, don't they? (In my case, overcorrection breeds overcorrection!)

The third mistake was more understandable; the bus station was between two arms of a roundabout. I went right, to where the entry gates looked to be. They weren't.

I watched, frustrated, as my bus closed its doors and left.

Damn.

So despite my best efforts to avoid it, I'm now booked on a direct bus to Seville at 19:30.

3h15, which means I really need to get some travel sickness pills.

No time in Huelva, a massive reduction to my time in Seville.

Damn.

Just took the wrong path at each fork, didn't I?

(just to clarify, the phone on the Portuguese network meant also that my clock was out by an hour, and various other things had happened in the time since getting off the boat that meant I'd had lots of distractions and nothing to jog my memory!)

Right, I'm walking back into town, and could do with a bit of camaraderie/shadenfreude.

Tell me your biggest travel muck ups.

Walking back into town

Not a bad place to wind away a couple hours!

Cat spotted. It did not want scritches, it was on a mission.

Waterfront views.

I'm really curious what this statue depicts.

One last glimpse of Portugal.

Didn't expect, when I arrived in this area at 12:24, to be still here at 7.

Crêpe (pictured) and travel sickness pills (not pictured) acquired.

Back to the bus station.

Off we go.

I'm guessing this is the old railway station turned bus station.

I think my bus (Line 202) goes along the coast a bit, then to Huelva, then to Seville.

Last train from Huelva was at 19:00, so I'm going all the way to Seville.

Hoping these travel sickness pills work

Honestly my one really really savvy decision today was to have dinner for lunch, while waiting for the ferry. That's going to make things a lot easier.

I guess another smart decision was having recorded other bus times in my notes in advance, so I knew my options.

I'm curious if the other plan would've worked, or if I'd have missed the train at Merida. Would've been similarly consequential.

Not an easy thing to check now, alas.

All Star just came on the coach radio.

The coach ride was...fine.

During an extended stop at Huelva (where most pax got off), I tried to reconfirm with the driver that this bus was going to Seville and I didn't need to transfer (as he'd said something when I showed my ticket on boarding), and he got very aggro for some reason.

It was a pretty hopeless conversation as he spoke no English and just seemed to be angry in Spanish about... something? Not sure what I'd done, still not sure frankly.

Anyway it was the right bus.

The tablets worked, but still...give me a train anyday.

A night walk and metro ride across Seville to my hotel.

Right, that's me done for the day. Very worn down & exhausted by the two big mistakes I made today, but I guess I made the most of it? It's tough when you keep thinking of "could've beens".

I'm here for a couple nights; but I'll be doing some more InterRail'ing tomorrow.

Night!