travelling in Northern Spain

Hi Trees. I wonder why you asked this question. I was wondering the same when I saw your post and the answer above; before buying the Interrail pass. 

I needed to decide whether to buy a one country or a global pass, but felt I didn't have enough information one how Interrail worked in Spain to make that decision so chose the global pass blindly and, within hindsight, unwisely.

If you are in the same conundrum, and you would need just a one country pass were you not to travel in Spain; the main second question is how many days you have and what part of Spain you want to cover exactly.

In my case I intended to travel only along the North, from indeed Bilbao going West (as the Euskotren which takes you from Hendaye to SS -E2- and then from SS to Bilbso -E1- are not included in the pass). I wanted to do my journey along the North without having to pay for reservations. After buying my pass and going in the journey planner, I noticed all trains that came up required reservations, and required going on long detours South and the North (such as to Valladolid and then North). I called the Renfe number listed on the Interrail pages and they confirmed that indeed the narrow gauge was included. Then I asked if it was OK to then add the trains manually on the planner to link them to my rail pass and show this and my pass to a conductor (as Intereail suggests when a train covered does not require reservations and doesn't show on the app) and they said it depended on whether or not there was a ticket office at the station. I was pretty puzzled by this answer. How can I possibly know this in advance? "I asked. They said, I need to plan my exact route, then call again, and they would tell me when I needed to get off the train to get a physical ticket from a ticket office. This, and the slowness of the trains for the little time I had put me off altogether, so I forked even more money to get myself a 10 sharable bus ticket booklet that covered my route in very little time. 

Had I known all this before, I would have save myself a considerable amount of money buying only a 1 country pass, which would have covered my journey in and out of the UK, and all travel in France to the border with fairly reasonable reservation fees for the distance (€10-20 per person depending on the day, dynamic pricing) and a good choice of non reservations trains.

Have a good journey

What nonsense they told you.

Manually added trains are just as valid as trains saved from the planner. In addition, your pass is valid regardless of any ticket office. A physical €0 ticket may in some places be practical to get through the gates but it is by no means mandatory. There is supposed to be staff that can open gates.

I know, but how do you know it is nonsense? Have you used these trains with the Interrail pass?

 I does sound nonsense to me too (an unnecessary demand on Interrail passes holders), but that's what they said. 

I have indeed used some of them with Interrail. At the time only the paper pass existed, but the mobile pass has the same validity.

What matters in the first place is what the pass conditions say: trains without mandatory reservations can be used with the pass only and adding a train manually is a valid way to create a ticket (barcode). Renfe agreed with those conditions and cannot make up their own additional rules.

In addition, the page about Spain mentions how the gates are supposed to work. I think that text is incomplete though, since there are stations with closed gates and without staff. In such a case, there should be an information column with a button to talk with someone at Renfe's call centre, who can open the gate remotely. ​@Eurail Community Moderator can this be added?

Hi ​@rvdborgt 

Thank you for raising this. We've escalated the issue internally for review. We'll let you know as soon as we have an update.

We appreciate you bringing this to our attention and sharing your experience.

Warmly

Thank you rydborgt.