Renfe is preparing to expand into Portuguese territory. The operator that operates the Spanish rail network will invest 15 million euros in adapting part of its fleet, in order to make it possible to circulate on Portuguese routes, reports the newspaper La Información.

The current management of Renfe intends to enter Portugal in 2024 – as it had previously revealed, something that should happen when the construction of the first Portuguese high-speed line, which will connect Elvas and Évora, is completed. The work will reduce the time between Lisbon and Badajoz by about two hours.

According to La Información, Renfe's plan has a time horizon of 2027, with the railway company intending to offer new services along the Portuguese Atlantic strip and linking Lisbon and Porto to Madrid.

For the implementation of this plan, the use of two different models of trains is foreseen, one electric (series 120), for services with multiple intermediate stops, and another electric-diesel (series 730), for non-electrified routes, as in the connection between Salamanca and the Portuguese border.

The first type of train aims to allow the creation of a route between Lisbon and Porto that would extend to A Coruña (after passing through Santiago de Compostela, Pontevedra and Vigo), as well as a new daily service between Madrid and Porto (passing through Medina del Campo and Salamanca). Electric-diesel trains should connect Madrid and Lisbon twice a day in about six hours, extending the trains that already connect the Portuguese capital to Badajoz.

According to La Información, Infraestruturas de Portugal has not yet received any request from Renfe to take its trains to Évora, and for this Portuguese entity all expressions of interest that may arise from operators to operate on Portuguese railways are “positive”.