Portugal. Suggestions for lineside spotting.

Evening all. My son and I will be visiting Lisbon and Porto next week, over Easter and until 5th April. Any suggestions for good photo locations in either city? Also, when travelling from Lisbon to Porto and return is it wise to purchase the train ticket online, or is it usually OK to purchase them on the day. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I've used the CP app, it's quite user-friendly. I did also buy some tickets from the website and printed out the pdfs they sent me, just in case my phone "died" on me. Buying IC tickets at the ticket offices is perfectly feasible but you may get allocated any old seat still available the nearer you get to departure time. You might find popular IC trains sell out on bank holidays......

Entrencamento is a good place to watch trains, it also has a railway museum next to the station with steam locos in a roundhouse. It's also between Porto and Lisbon so potentially a place to break the journey for an hour or two.

The other place favoured for watching trains is Ermesinde just a few miles north of Porto.

Actually Porto Camphana is fine for spotting. Noone seems to care if you take photos. There's an amount of freight, Duoro diesels and main line IR and IC services all loco hauled.

Hoofhearted said:

Also, when travelling from Lisbon to Porto and return is it wise to purchase the train ticket online, or is it usually OK to purchase them on the day. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

Did Porto (Sao Bento) to Lisbon (Santa Apolonia) last Thurs (21 March). Booked via omio.com at the beginning of the month for an advance 2nd class ticket - @£10 (paid in Sterling) incl. booking fee. Printed tickets but guards were happy with pdf copy on phone for the QR code.

Book 1st class if you need a plug socket otherwise 2nd class is perfectly acceptable - though I found the free wifi patchy in 2nd so ended up sitting in the buffet car (between 1st and 2nd and which was pleasantly quiet) for most of the journey.

Nice viewing of 1408 on station pilot duties at Santa Apolonia.

WessexEclectic said:

Nice viewing of 1408 on station pilot duties at Santa Apolonia.

Click to expand...

This is a video of 1408 from September 2023:

WessexEclectic said:

Did Porto (Sao Bento) to Lisbon (Santa Apolonia) last Thurs (21 March). Booked via omio.com at the beginning of the month for an advance 2nd class ticket - @£10 (paid in Sterling) incl. booking fee. Printed tickets but guards were happy with pdf copy on phone for the QR code.

Book 1st class if you need a plug socket otherwise 2nd class is perfectly acceptable - though I found the free wifi patchy in 2nd so ended up sitting in the buffet car (between 1st and 2nd and which was pleasantly quiet) for most of the journey.

Nice viewing of 1408 on station pilot duties at Santa Apolonia.

Click to expand...

The buffet cars are unusual as they have booth seating. Usually quiet as everyone on CP IC has a booked seat, (unlike e.g. DB where they're full of those without seat reservations).