We have just left Camp de Tarragona, a wheat field (olive grove?) station set up for this high speed line. We are now heading towards Reus airport, where this Euromed train will change gauge.

Renfe has a large number of gauge-changing trains, as the old “conventional speed” speed network is all in 1668mm Iberian Gauge, and the new high speed network is 1435 Standard Gauge, and trains need to go between them

This particular one is a Talgo-made Series 130, but there are also CAF-made gauge changing trains, and many of the gauge changing machines are configurable to use either one of the competing gauge changing technologies.

The actual gauge changing operation has to be done slowly, it takes about 5 minutes between stopping and going through the machine. It’s a relatively quiet process, you hear a little clanking, but other than that, if you don’t know, you won’t realise it’s happening.

The gauge-changing technology we use today was originally developed by Talgo. The first trials were made in 1967, with a public demonstration in Irún in 1968, and entering commercial service with a gauge changer at Portbou, on the French border with Cerbère in 1969. The machine is still there, but has been decommissioned.

It was originally used for passenger service in appropriately built Talgo carriages, in what became known as “Catalan Express” TEE trains that would leave Barcelona, change gauge at Portbou, and then continue on to Paris, Milan, Geneva and Brussels. There were also night trains, run through a number of partnerships. I have taken Trenhotel services to Barcelona from Milan when interrailling in 1998 and Paris because of the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption.

Sadly, these services were progressively cancelled with the advent of TGV marking a change in SNCF’s priorities, and them pointedly doing everything they could to discourage the continuation of these services

This Renfe class 130 train, nicknamed “Mini Pato” (Mini Duck), made by Talgo is capable of speeds of up to 250km/h on standard gauge 25kV AC lines, and up to 220km/h on Iberian gauge 3kV DC lines. The current stretch of track between the gauge changer, and Castelló de la Plana has been newly constructed or reconditioned to allow for 220km/h operation.

There is a variant of this train, class 730, that has diesel generators in carriages behind each power car, supplying traction current for the train on unelectrified tracks. It still has pantographs to run on electrified sections.

There have been successful trials in the North West of the country to see if speeds of 300km/h can be reached safely on Iberian gauge lines, but it would require large amounts of investment into changing signalling, amongst other things.

And we are, of course, running late.

Our conductor has come on the tannoy to tell us that we are running 30 minutes late in Spanish, and 20 minutes late in English.

We’ve also received a text message telling us we are running 33 minutes late (spoiler: it’s going to be longer, we should have arrived by now with that delay).

Both the text message and the announcement were careful to point out that the delay was due to “issues in the infrastructure”. This is because Renfe currently don’t have to pay out for delays due to infrastructure problems, as they know Adif has hundreds of temporary speed restrictions on the lines as a result of the actions taken after the Adamuz and Gélida disasters. They let you know about this when you buy a ticket.

Either way, Adif is currently showing my arrival at 13:05, which is +48. And we keep stopping on the line, so who knows when we actually will arrive.