belgium

GoVolta has sent a request to ACM this week for some more(!) plans for international trains. This includes: - (a) The Hague to Luxembourg and Strasbourg via Rotterdam and Brussel-Zuid. On Monday-Friday the morning trains runs to Strasbourg, and the afternoon only to Luxembourg. The weekends only run to Luxembourg. This is scheduled to begin in the 2028 timetable. - (b) The Hague to Cologne via Rotterdam, Utrecht and Arnhem three times a day, from Monday through Friday, and twice a day on weekends. This is scheduled to begin in the 2028 timetable. - (c) Amsterdam to Paris on the high-speed line, three times a day, seven days a week, scheduled to begin in the 2029 timetable. This will be in addition to their currently planned service that will run on the conventional rail network starting this December.

Services (a) and (b) are said to run on loco-hauled carriages or EMU, but for the high-speed service (c) Winkelman has told Treinreiziger.nl that they are looking at old ICE 3M trains.

It seems the test runs for the new Belgian HLE 17's are well underway in the Netherlands in the Hanzelijn, between Lelystad and Zwolle.

These are Alstom Traxx 3 MS locomotives capable of running in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany at speeds up to 200km/h. The locomotives will run the EuroCity service between Rotterdam and Brussels taking over from the TRAXX F140 MS2 (Serie 186).

Martin van Vulpen has shares these details along with some more pictures.

As an aside, some more information on the Hanzelijn:

De spoorlijn tussen Lelystad en Zwolle geldt al jaren als een geliefde testlocatie voor nieuw spoorwegmaterieel. Dankzij de moderne infrastructuur, de aanwezigheid van het beveiligingssysteem ERTMS en de mogelijkheid om met hoge snelheden te rijden, vormt de lijn een ideaal proefterrein voor uitgebreide dynamische testen. Hoewel de Hanzelijn ontworpen is voor snelheden tot 200 kilometer per uur, worden dergelijke snelheden in de praktijk vrijwel uitsluitend tijdens test- en toelatingsritten gereden.

European Sleeper launched their Paris - Brussels - Berlin night service on 26 March. This is an addition to their existing Brussels - Amsterdam - Berlin -Prague service, which started in May 2023. Thibault Lapers coverage, as always, is extensive, so that's why I'll choose to share that here while adding some of my notes below.

This inaugural trip comes as ÖBB scraps their Nightjet connection between Paris and Berlin, and Paris and Vienna after SNCF stopped subsidising the services starting in 2026. On LinkedIn, Jon Worth uploaded a video of European Sleeper's first departure on their new connection, saying:

ÖBB and SNCF ended the Paris-Berlin night train, saying it was impossible to run it without a subsidy. So private company European Sleeper stepped in instead. The first train departed Paris Nord this evening, and the service will operate 3x a week. Excellent work Elmer van Buuren and team!

The video shows RailPool's Alstom TRAXX MS3 Universal locomotive, number 188 144, departing Paris, to much celebration, pulling eight RDC passenger carriages (a mix of sleepers and couchettes) with stickers from European Sleerp and Train Charter.

Railcolor reports that European Sleeper also leases RailPool's 188 121 locomotive.