Welcome to the magical world of RENFE

Well, today I don't know what to write, so I have decided it would be a good idea to rant and rave -cool expression by the way!- about Renfe.
I suppose every reader of this blog knows what Renfe is, but if there's some strange visitor -hello!-, Renfe is the Spanish company of trains. Trains aren't great over here. But at least we have the “Rodalia” suburban-regional train-...in other regions they have nothing.

I take this train everyday to go from Vila-real to the university, in Castelló. First of all, I'd like to complain about the delays. I don't know how well -or not- do trains work in other places, but here, they are late almost every day, at least, the typical 4-5 minutes. Then, I don't understand why they have so exact schedules like 07:33 or things like that. It makes no sense! But this is only the beginning! Sometimes -not too often, but there should never be!- the train arrives ten, fifteen, twenty minutes late...But hey, it doesn't matter! In the magical world of Renfe, everybody's happy. Everybody but the passengers, obviously. In these “extreme” cases I've just told you, there weren't any explanations by the company, nor either any apologies. And what's more, they don't ever warn about the delay, so you keep waiting and waiting...Only last week, a worker in Vila-real train station came out to tell the passengers waiting on platform number two, that the train had a delay of 20 minutes. Luckily I had time enough to arrive at class in time..., but still, it's annoying. I hope this won't happen any day during my exams period...but just in case, I'll take an earlier train.

More annoying things about Renfe: the tickets and the turnstiles. If you buy a normal ticket for one-day-use, most times the turnstiles won't accept it. Why? I don't know, it's another one of the great Renfe mysteries. Sometimes you have to put your ticket in the machine about five or six times or try different turnstiles until the doors open, and this is really exasperating. Once, when I arrived to the Castelló station, I went to queue, and when it was my turn, the ticket didn't work in any turnstile. Everybody had gone and I was there, trying to make the doors open... When I was seriously starting to think about jumping above them, a Renfe worker appeared and opened the doors...lucky me! If not, I'd still be waiting on that platform in Castelló station * lol *.
On the other hand, if you buy a month-use-ticket, it works fine. The machine accepts it the first time you put it. Mystery again!
A friend of mine had a terrible experience with her ticket...well, still worse, because it was a month ticket. She inserted it into the slot and...the machine started to make strange noises. Eventually, the doors opened, and she had her ticket back...but all ripped and semi-broken. Luckily for her, the assistant at her town's station was understanding enough and she could have a new ticket. This is strange by the way, because Renfe workers aren't specially well-known for their kindness, and neither for respecting you when you speak Catalan. Well, I don't want to get into these matters again, excuse me!

And to conclude I'll talk about another anecdote related to Renfe. I arrived to the Castelló station after a twenty minutes walk from the university. It was a Monday, so this means the busiest day of the week for me at the uni. I looked at the screens to see from what line my train departed, I went through the turnstiles, walked down the stairs to the platform and...saw that there was a train in the line it was supposed to, but also one in the line next to this...I started to get confused. I got on the one that the screen said, but some people on it started to doubt if this was the right one. The screens next to each train didn't show any information, so this didn't help at all. We got off that train and looked if the small screen of the other train said the destination of it. Nothing. We stood on the platform, and as it was almost the departing time, everybody got on the first train again, the one that was supposed to be departing from line 2 at 15.20 according to the big screen. At that moment, a Renfe worker appeared on the platform and started shouting that the train departing at 15.20 was the other one. You could also hear the automatic announcing voice repeating it, since the information on the big screen was incorrect, as you see. There was only one minute left, so everybody ran. 15.20. Doors closed. The train started to move but just a few meters and...it stopped. Lights went off and it seems there were some technical problems. The train finally departed at 15.35. So you can see the lack of coordination, and how many “mysteries” there may be in a simple regional train departure. Great work, Renfe!