@q@kitten but how is it going to sort anything out when (as I understand) this is the last train leaving Latour de carol that day? You miss it, and you're stranded in a village with population 472 until morning (with first TER departing it at 7:27 in the morning).
@q@kitten yeah basically the only more or less viable option with this RE seems to be: if it's delayed and you see that you won't be able to catch your night train: remain on RE, do not leave it, so that it will get you back to Barcelona (by midnight), get a hotel there (of course you'll have to pay for it out of pocket, there will be no compensation). Getting back home next day would be challenging though, high-speed trains from Barcelona to France are usually full, and they're mandatory reservation. So if I was in this situation, I would just depart from Madrid 2 hours earlier, at 7:27, to ensure that I will get on that night train. 2 hours is not such a huge price to pay for that safety imo.
@q@kitten I don't think they have hotels anywhere near? And it's rural France. We've once been stranded in a similar (albeit much larger (population 2820), and in more densely populated area) french village, just 7km from our destination (turned out that because of some event, the bus route (of the only bus that day) was cut in half that day, so the driver just dumped is in that "main" village and said bye). It was Saturday too, but not even evening. Taxis are impossible to order; that village even had a taxi company (as opposed to Latour de carol apparently) but it only worked mon-fri, and none of the ten taxi companies in 30km radius were willing to take our real-time order because it's Saturday, should have booked day in advance. Unfortunately walking was not an option because of the luggage. In the end we had to hitchhike, took us another hour to find a ride (even though we were holding a sheet of paper with large letters saying that we'll pay 50€ to get to the [destination]). And at least we just needed to get to the destination, without having to get back to the train station the next day.
