Trains to and from the Camino

I wrote this post at the beginning of March.  I'm still waiting to make reservations for the last leg of the trip from Santiago de Compostela to Madrid.  Renfe still doesn't have the schedules for that route and date.

Our flight to Madrid gets in at 8:20 am on Friday, May 1st.  But with our experience with flying US Airways to Rome in November, when both flights were 3 hours late, I want to allow plenty of time to catch the train.  The high speed trains to Leon are at 11:05 and 14:40.  When we flew to Madrid in 2007 with a 7:35 arrival time, we had made reservations for the 14:05 train to Pamplona and were able to change them to the 9:50 train.  That time we went first class and there was hardly anyone else in the car so I'm hoping that maybe we can do the same thing this year although it is May 1st so the train could be crowded.  At least if we go first class where there are fewer passengers, it should be easier to get an earlier train.  So we are on the first class car (117 euros for two) of the ALVIA 04141 train that leaves from Madrid's Charmartin station at 2:40pm and arrives in Leon at 5:40.
Here are the stations along the way:
Segovia (3:11pm); Valladolid (3:50pm); Palencia (4:30pm); Sahagun (5:04)

I'll have to wait until March 13th to make the reservation from Santiago de Compostela to Madrid since they don't take reservations more than 2 months in advance.  They have a 9:05 train that arrives at 14.56 (2:56 pm).

Here's a map of the train routes.