Hauled with a Class 269 in "Manzinguer" livery and fitted with Corail cars of SNCF, the "Hispania-expreso" Barcelona-Cerbère is seen in LLansá (now LLançà), in a summer evening of the early-80s. This car is now close to Cerbère, where it will connect with overnighters to Rome and Geneva/Zurich/Basel/Hamburg ("Hispania").
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In the early-80s, RENFE hired some Corail cars (A10rtu and B10tu) from SNCF, and used them on various flagship services, while Class 9000 and 10000 cars were being ordered. These Corail cars were mounted on CAF-GC3 broad-gauge bogies, very close to standard-gauge Y32 bogies used in France. These were later used under Class 10000 and Bc10x-9600 cars, together with Bc10ux couchettes cars of SNCF diagrammed on French-Iberic sleepers from 1985 to 1996.
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In those days, Corail services of RENFE ranked as good as "Electrotrenes" (fitted with Class 432 EMUs) and were subject to Supplemento B.
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The "Hispania Expreso" was later downgraded to a "Diurno" and fitted with Class 10000 cars then with B12t-12300 cars. Ultimately, it was withdrawn in 2000, after running at-peaks only for some years.



<p>Photo by Ricard Ricón Serra (ricard_ricon&#064;hotmail.com) (Acknowledgements), from Tranvia.org


Posting and comment by P.L.Guillemin (plguillemin&#064;yahoo.fr)