Portugal loses HALF its international trains for a year

[jon@gruene.social]

Portugal loses HALF its international trains for a year

Well done everyone!

https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2026-03-23/portugal-train-service-to-be-replaced-with-bus/995015

Buses from Valença to Vigo

#CrossBorderRail

[quixoticgeek@social.v.st]

@jon notice the buses can't take wheelchairs. How on earth is that legal in the EU in this day and age?

Portugal and Spain really need to get their shit together on this border.

[moof@cupoftea.social]

@jon …I was planning on taking that train around the 20th April.

Now pondering if I want to bother going to Valença, or just take a bus direct to Porto.

[spaetzlesmasher@sueden.social]

@jon Now I get why people are calling Portugal a Western Balkan country, with how hard it is to reach it by train.

[jonas_bostrom@mastodonsweden.se]

@jon When you thought it couldn't get worse…

But closed for engineering works might at least mean that it will get better.

[eviljarred@infosec.exchange]

@jon I assume this is due to improvements, though? And not a lack of riders on the service? If the former, that's good news as long as it doesn't far exceed the proposed timeline (which I recognize it could).

[jon@gruene.social]

@quixoticgeek The practical answer: these are coaches, not buses, and have no lifts. I had to take one during a previous engineering closure.

But politically of course it's *absurdly* bad, just like every other thing with that border. Diesel trains on an electrified line? Hello!

[jon@gruene.social]

@spaetzlesmasher Spain is more the issue here than Portugal actually.