We purchased online 3 tickets for a railway from Lisbon -EntreCampos to Faro as we are making our way to Adgarve. It was already difficult because we don't speak the language, assuming Portuguese maybe easy to understand because i speak Spanish, we figure it should be fine. My advise, be prepared for the unexpected, when we arrived at the train station few shops were open for service at 11am. The 1st floor is the only area that has a sibgle 27" that is abiut to go. This monitor displays can barely be seen and the information is not updated very often. The area near the supermarket had a ticket booth, in which they spoke English and they directed me to plataform #4. The monitor sadly only gives you updates within 30 mins of your train departure, which makes no sense. A few wide guys are always trying to peddle their services to act as translator or to guide you to your train, others just outright ask you for money as they see you as a target because you carry luggage and backpack. As a New Yorker, i can smell the bullshit from a mile a way and i can spot trouble makers from my daily travels on the MTA in NYC. So of course i got approach and i didnt fall for it but others were not so lucky. Just from speaking out loud, these people can spot Americans- so becareful. The entire station has a police officer at the entrance but his presence was not convincing as it did not detered the homeless or trouble makers. Anyways my train was late 20mins, no updates on the boards. The most hilarious part is that when it finally showed up at 2:35pm, the one board that tells you the train pulling into the station still had the last train that had departed 5 mins ago on display... imagine the people that just got to the station and got in the wrong train..
No way to describe it but- real shit hile station that makes the MTA subway system a first class system in terms of information access. The train itself was crowded, only 1 toilet working, storing luggage on the overhead compartment is difficult unless you are carrying a small luggage.
The air conditioner was barely working, at times it would stop and it got really warm on there and when you stepped seated for almost 3.5 hrs, it really sucks.
I dont think you need to know anymore, other than be prepared for a very poor experience. By the way, there is assigned seats so dont just grab any empty seat because they will ask you to move if your tickets dont match your assigned seats.
By the way the bathroom are on the 2nd floor and you have to pay € 0.50 to use them, by the way a lot more cleaner than the restroom in the train. read more