I'm planning a railway trip from my house (about 80 miles outside London) to Barcelona – about the longest same-day railway journey it's possible to do from here.

Organising it to include a decent lunch at le Train Bleu, the journey involves about seven changes of trains or tubes. It's obviously a great deal cheaper to book on specific trains. The Eurostar site doesn't allow through booking into Spain, so I understand we have to book through RailEurope/The Trainline

So:
1. The highest risk of delay is between here and Paddington. Does a Cotswold-London booking through RailEurope/the Trainline give me some protection if I miss the London connection because of domestic delays (yes: we'll allow the statutory 90 mins for the connection, which is only a 30 min walk. But with Worst Great Western...)

2. Does a joint French/Spanish booking through RailEurope give me protection to get a later train if there are delays in connections in France and Spain? (obviously part of our backup plan includes going without the nice lunch and relying on the microwaved junk SNCF doles out instead)

3. Is there an at-seat power supply (cattle class throughout) on Eurostar and the TGV Duplex to Figueres (I know about the Cotswold Line and the Alvia into Barcelona)?

4. Is there an alternative to RailEurope for booking the London-Barcelona bit?

5. Am I right in thinking none of these trains offer wi-fi, so we're going to have to use dongles?

I presume you are using the Seat61 suggestion - but one thing he misses on that page is that you can book home to Paris on the Eurostar website

as one ticket which will cover you for delays from home to Paddington

I don't have any answers, sorry, but if you don't get much joy here, you could try emailing the Man in Seat61. He is sometimes on this forum and may see your question, but if not...
http://www.seat61.com/email.htm

Kay

"you can book home to Paris on the Eurostar website...
as one ticket which will cover you for delays from home to Paddington"

Not according to the Eurostar website, which says I'm covered only from Oxford. And says nothing about whether I'd be shafted anyway from Paris (or possibly Perpignan) to Barcelona.

Which, of course, is why I was hoping that nice Mr Seat 61 man might see this...

Hey Flann,

I assume that you will be taking the Eurostar to Paris Nord.

I'm not familiar with how to get from your home to St Pancras Station.

However, www.voyages-sncf.com offers the 15:20 from Paris Gare de Lyon to Barcelona Sants for 68E.

The 20:41 night train from Austerlitz is 74E.

Enjoy your journey.

Why are you NOT taking the overnight TrenHotel from Paris to Barcelona or are you traveling on a date it does not run?

Oh, and listen..DO NOT let all the wimpy whiners here scare you away from Las Ramblas..you HAVE to see it since it is as much a part of Barcelona as is Sagrada Familia (go there EARLY).

Flanner, I wouldn´t count on a power supply at the Alvia trains, and there isn´t WiFi even if you can see a free network on your laptop.
The Alvia have different configurations depending on which train is serving the line, a Talgo or a CAF. There are cases where you can find a power supply in Turista but not in Preferente (specially in the Talgo ). I can tell you for sure that the small CAF trains have power supply units on all the seats in Preferente (just got back from Bilbao to Madrid yesterday).
Ah, and the maps that appear in the Renfe website (the same ones that come up in seat61.com ) are not correct at all. You might think that you are buying certain seat and find yourself travelling on the other direction.

Bye, Cova

"Why are you NOT taking the overnight TrenHotel from Paris to Barcelona"

Because I want to get up at home, walk to the station, get the 0630 train, work and read for a day, then get a quick taxi to a hotel in Barcelona by Spanish dinner time. Pausing only for lunch at an unassuming Paris restaurant.

That's supposed to be the point of trains: using time wisely. Messing about with sleeping cars simply adds a whole level of complexity to what ought to be a simple journey

"Not according to the Eurostar website, which says I'm covered only from Oxford. And says nothing about whether I'd be shafted anyway from Paris (or possibly Perpignan) to Barcelona. "

The whole point of booking on the Eurostar website for Oxford to Paris is to provide cover in case of problems getting to St Pancras. If you are following the instructions on the seat61 website for using day trains to get to Barcelona from London then simply alter them by getting an earlier train from St Pancras so that a delay means you end up on the "recommended" Eurostar

"then simply alter them by getting an earlier train from St Pancras so that a delay means you end up on the "recommended" Eurostar"

Not possible. There IS no earlier ex-Cotswold train than the one getting me into Paddington 90 mins before the first Eurostar that allows time for lunch at the Train Bleu. I'd have to go the night before, or drive to Oxford - which are both obviously a bloody sight messier than just driving to Heathrow.

So I repeat the question: does anyone know whether it's possible via RailEurope/The Trainline to get protection against a delay from any of the thousand or so British stations Eurostar won't accept through bookings from?

seat61.com has a commercial link to RailEurope - is that a conflict of interest?

book thru www.voyages-sncf.com or idTGV.com (both French rail sites) - but flanner why is a gentrified folk like you going cattle class - there is a world of difference between classes on these trains - my decades of incessant European train riding tells me to exhort anyone traveling as a tourist - esp those with luggage to go first class.

WTH are you going cattle class - on hard times? Really pay the extra and go in style.

Can't help with the England part of the trip and have never used RailEurope, but in my experience, as long as you buy regular refundable tickets from the SNCF site, they can be changed in the case of a delay. It's happened to me on a couple of occasions and I had no problems getting a ticket changed without extra charge or even, once, just being put on the next train by a conductor who marked the ticket I was holding with the number of the new train or something.

"Really pay the extra and go in style"

What on earth is the point of such absurd prodigality? For anyone who virtually lives on trains, they're not the exotic treat Yanks find quaint.

If ordinary class is good enough for the MPs, Nobel and Oscar winners, Peers and bishops who make up a substantial proportion of my fellow-passengers on the first leg of this journey, it'll certainly be good enough for me.

I've been travelling second class on Continental trains for half a century. By all means try to con your uninformed fellow-citizens into buying pointless cosseting from your employers. But don't assume we're as easily fooled as they are.

Now instead of puffing your kickback payers: do YOU know about WiFi access and seat powerpoints on Eurostar and duplex TGVs?

WIFI is often free IME in first class and if in 2nd class it may be charged. Seat powerplants are common on both eurostars and TGVs IME.

And I think all your segments are individual tickets and unless full fare not changeable if trains are late, etc

Next year or so they will go back to the past when you could ineed buy a London to spain ticket and use it as full fare the whole way, taking any train - that is when there was only one fare - a flat fare - but with the various national railways splitting fares into variable so-called 'global' fares with Byzantine fare structures such thru ticketing ended a few decades ago

But voila next year or so the Eurostar and Thalys and ICE and TGV trains are re-forming so such thru ticketing will once again be possible.

Is there an alternative to RailEurope for booking the London-Barcelona bit?>

Are you going round trip, Sir Flanner?

If so another option would be a railpass! Yeh a dread railpass like the France-Spain Railpass, which offers fully flexible ticketes in case you miss you booked train - pass can be used on other trains, depending of course on whether seats remain - check out the France and Spain Eurailpass - go to www.seat61.com and click on his commercial link to RailEurope to see prices - I do not know what you are paying now or whether you are going round trip or whether you are going to do other train travel but the pass is a flexipass good over a 2-month period so you could even use it later on one of your frequent trips to provencial France!

Cehck it out if wanting flexible tickets!

France-spain Pass Prices

4 days of unlimited travel in a 2-month period

2nd class (which you call Cattle class) Saverpass p.p. $297 or about $75 a day or about 50 euros a day for flexible first class travel in both countries - extra days above the base 4 are $33 a day or about just 22 euros a day - so you can see the more days the cheaper the pass is per day - say you go to France later after returning to your Costwold estate - you could travel by train for 22 euros a day.

Now the class a man of your means or anyone as a tourist should be traveling IMO - 4 days at $349 p.p. or $87 a day or about 60 euros a day p.p. but extra days above the 4 cost just $39 a day or about 37 euros a day for unlimited first class train travel. Again the more days you use the better.

So since you do not indicate whether you are going return or not or may be taking other trains this could or may not be a great deal - but you could see for many it can be - especially since your query about missing trains and changing tickets in nil - you will not lose you money with a pass just the reservation fee.

I ask a straightforward question.

Then I get pestered by bloody salesmen - selling me something I don't need at that. It's like walking past a row of Third World restaurants.

Telling them no doesn't work: they don't get their bonus unless they hook a punter.

I don't want a pass (least of all a pass I can't use) I just want to know how to get from here to Barcelona at a price lower than Ryanair.

No but that pass could be the cheapest return ticket with the aspects you asked about in your OP - if miss trains, etc.

You don't need to be an Einstein to know that Ryan air or Veulig, etd would be cheaper than taking the train - heck even the Eurostar could cost more than a London to spain Ryanair flight.

You really think taking a train for umpteen hours at that could be cheaper than Ryanair - you asked the wrong question Sir!