Rail board RENFE marks 80th birthday and hints at discounts, offers and promotions for 2021

SPAIN'S national rail board RENFE celebrates its 80th anniversary this year, so it's a good time to keep your eyes open for promotions, discounted tickets, special offers and events.

Even though the pandemic is preventing leisure travel at present, this is not expected to continue all year, and rail journeys for work, family and friend visits and other essentials mean money can still be saved through RENFE's one-off 80th-year activities.

The first train hit the tracks in Spain at RENFE's hands on January 24, 1941, and eight decades later, the national rail service was set to be opened up to outside competitors for the first time, removing what had long been a monopoly and effectively forcing the hitherto sole provider to make concerted efforts to attract and keep customers, through a combination of improved services and facilities and cheaper rates.

But the entry to the Spanish market of Ilsa and of French transport board SNCF, due on January 1, has currently been pushed back to May due to Covid-related restrictions.

During its 80 years as Spain's only train travel operator, RENFE has acquired world-acclaimed status – particularly with its high-speed AVE network, which branched out into Saudi Arabia in 2011 – and in 'normal', non-pandemic times, has over 5,000 trains running daily across the country, transports half a billion people a year or, approximately, 11 annual journeys for every single inhabitant, and has more than 15,000 members of staff on its books.

From post-War steam network replacement to global leader in Texas and Saudi

Work started in January 1941, not much more than a year after the end of the Civil War, on creating the Red Nacional de Ferrocarriles Españoles ('National Spanish Railways Network'), shortened to RENFE, and which would gradually replace the existing stream-train system with one run on electricity.

The first electric train launched ran from Madrid to Segovia via Ávila – two cities in Castilla y León – and the long-distance TALGO train was launched nine years later, in 1950, connecting Madrid with the Basque town of Irún, just a few kilometres from the French border.

Major modernising works on the network started in the mid-1960s, and the outer suburban rail system, or Cercanías – linking the centres of big cities with much smaller towns up to an hour's drive away – started to become a reality in the early 1980s.

It was also around this time that the infrastructure began to appear for the Alta Velocidad Española ('Spanish High-Speed'), or AVE – a clever play on words, since ave also means 'bird' in the Spanish language – although it would take until 1992 before the first of these express links, from Madrid to Sevilla, made its 'maiden voyage'.

In fact, in 2017, the AVE celebrated its 25th anniversary and, on the 25th day of every month, launched 25,000 AVE tickets at the reduced price of €25, a move that led to numerous server upgrades due to huge online traffic crashing it every month, and at times anything up to 100,000 tickets having to be released at the offer price because of the whole lot being snapped up within seconds after midnight.

In order to begin the long process of complying with European Union competition laws, the company split in 2005 into RENFE Operadora, the actual service provider, and ADIF, the rail infrastructure administration and maintenance firm.

The AVE first went international in 2016, with a connection crossing the French border, and in 2019, notched up its first 1,000 passengers on the Medina-Mecca line in Saudi Arabia – a year when the US arm of the country, RENFE of America, was set up after the company won a huge transport contract in the State of Texas.

Although rail connections throughout Spain remain sparse compared with other western European countries – except for city metro networks, which are run by franchise companies rather than by RENFE – the general consensus is that they are among the most comfortable and modern, very cheap, and usually punctual to the minute.

There remains room for plenty of development on the network – one of the most clamoured-for links is an unbroken rail connection between Alicante and Valencia along the coast, serving the easternmost towns in the two provinces and both the airports and, effectively, providing a single rail corridor from the French border to the far south – and RENFE still has medium-term plans to keep expanding the AVE network.

But even if all the rail infrastructure and train frequency that Spain needs is achieved, RENFE still estimates that by the year 2028, around 10% of its income will be from services provided outside the country, showing that its growth plans beyond national borders have only just started.

AVLO, the low-cost AVE, launches in June - €5 tickets on sale from today

Another project due to come to fruition this year is the low-cost version of the AVE, known as the AVLO – a no-frills express link designed for those who are less bothered about creature comforts such as WiFi and buffet cars but simply want to get from A to B in as short a time as possible and for as little money as they can.

To start with, the 'A' and 'B' will be Madrid and Barcelona – one of the most heavily-frequented connections in Spain by every means of transport, including rail, coach and air.

It will stop off at stations in Guadalajara (Castilla-La Mancha), Calatayud (Zaragoza province, Aragón), Zaragoza city, the Catalunya provincial capitals of Lleida, Tarragona and Girona, and Figueres (Girona province).

The launch was delayed by the pandemic, but the AVLO's first journey will be on June 23 this year.

Tickets went on sale today (Tuesday, January 26) for just €5 each way, a promotion that will continue until February 14, and which will be valid for travel any time between June 23 and December 11, 2021.

They can be purchased at Renfe.com or via the AVLO website.

Anyone who already bought a €5 ticket during similar AVLO promotions last year, expecting the service to be up and running by now, can enter the discount code they were given at the time on the website and acquire a new ticket at no extra cost.

Also, those registered on the RENFE loyalty scheme will have been given promotional codes over January 5 and 6 this year as a 'Three Kings present', which they can exchange for a €5 AVLO ticket.

At the moment, the Madrid-Barcelona link is the only AVLO connection – running four times daily in each direction – but over the next few years the network is expected to expand across the country.