I Was Stranded on a Train During Spain’s Massive Blackout—Here Are 4 Travel Lessons I Learned

I didn’t think much about it when our train rolled to a stop, but when a voice came over the loudspeaker, I—and the other 439 passengers on the high-speed train from Madrid to Barcelona—would learn what the rest of the country already knew. “There is no power in all of Spain.”

On Monday, April 29, at 12:33 p.m. local time, Spain’s electrical grid suffered a catastrophic disturbance (the cause of which has yet to be confirmed) that knocked out the power across the Iberian Peninsula, including Portugal and Andorra, and some parts of France. I was one of the estimated 35,000 people suddenly stuck on a train in the middle of nowhere, cut off from not only the power supply but also the outside world as the cell towers went dark. Metro systems came to a halt, and more than 300 flights were canceled as all airports were out of commission. Buses continued to run, but there were reports of them overflowing with passengers as people tried to get to where they were going with whatever transport methods were still available.

What was slowly starting to sink in was that I was in the midst of an unprecedented national emergency. What would follow was one of the most confusing and frustrating travel delays of my life. I arrived in Barcelona 24 hours later than I had planned, having experienced everything from total failures of communication to the power of the kindness of strangers. Here are the lessons I learned about travel when I found myself stranded during an unprecedented emergency during the 2025 Spanish blackout.

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Try not to give in to panic

Almost immediately, the train was shut off to conserve the battery’s remaining energy, as high-speed trains use electricity instead of diesel fuel. The cabin grew warmer, and the bathroom sinks overflowed with clean water (apparently, an automatic system that turns the water off had been disconnected). The doors of the train were opened for fresh air, but we were asked by the train staff, who were making announcements car-by-car by megaphone, not to all get up at once in a panic.

We were a little uncomfortable, but no one was hurt, and we all had somewhere to sit. At around 5 p.m., the Spanish Civil Guard arrived to check on anybody who needed medical assistance and to bring us food and water. Eventually, we were allowed to leave the train to stretch our legs (emergency ladders had been attached to help people get down the steep incline we were stuck on), and passengers congregated in the field to the side of the rails. Although everyone was worried, all we could do in the end was wait and try to keep a calm, positive attitude. Panic is contagious, but so is tranquility.

Remember that every terrible travel day always comes to an end

Whether it’s a weather delay, a global cyber outage, or the collapse of an entire country’s power grid, all terrible travel days eventually come to an end—even if they seem endless as they’re happening. With every new obstacle, it can be difficult to handle the heavy emotions of frustration and helplessness. But there’s a lot you can do to distract yourself, such as focusing on things you can control and looking for ways to help others. For the people on my train, this meant building a ramp to make it easier for older people to walk down to the field or translating updates for non-Spanish-speaking tourists.

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Take new information with a grain of salt

Rumors can take on a life of their own in these situations, and you can imagine that, suddenly cut off from the rest of the world, people are quick to catastrophize. Some said the power outages had occurred in all of Europe. Others jumped to conspiracy theories of cyberattacks and solar flares, which are powerful blasts of radiation occasionally emitted by the sun. However, it wasn’t the misinformation about the outside world I had to worry about.

The Spanish Civil Guard told us we would be evacuated to a nearby town where there would be buses to Barcelona. A fellow passenger told me it was unlikely the train would run again that night. Desperate to avoid a night in the dark, I got in one of the cars of a local volunteer going to a restaurant in a nearby town. Unluckily for me, my train would come back to life and leave for Barcelona 30 minutes after I had gone. When I arrived at the town, there was no bus to Barcelona as I had been told. Instead, volunteers brought us to a train station in Zaragoza, the largest city on the line between Barcelona and Madrid, at 1 a.m., where I would wait 12 more hours to board a train to Barcelona. If I had stayed, I would have been home by 3 a.m. on my original train. In hindsight, I would have waited and confirmed with an official source.

People are better than we give them credit for

Bad information made this journey harder than it had to be, but the people of Salillas de Jalón, the small, stationless town our train had stopped next to, made it much easier. A few hours after the power went out, they arrived with jugs of water, bags of potato chips, hot coffee, milk, and bottles of wine. When it got dark, a generator appeared out of nowhere to power the emergency storm lights they brought. Our national emergency began to look and feel more like a Spanish block party.

The only thing that warmed my heart more than the kindness of the people who helped our train was coming home to find videos on social media proving that our situation was not at all unique. All over the Spanish countryside, regular people had flocked to the stranded trains, offering assistance however they could. “Look for the helpers,” as Mr. Rogers once famously said. “You will always find people who are helping.”