Good news on the way for the travellers! Long-promised direct trains from London to Amsterdam will start in December this year. It however might not run the regular service until Easter.
The direct London to Amsterdam trains have been long promise. In fact, the German Railways went so far as to run a train to London St Pancras and announce a 2013 start date. Obviously, the deadline was not met and the German firm has not shown any indication lately of taking on Eurostar.
Nicolas Petrovic, Eurostar’s chief executive said last year that over the coming months, they are making a major investment in the fleet, the service and stations to equip their business for expansion. “The launch of our Amsterdam route at the end of next year marks a key milestone and represents a significant growth opportunity for the future.” Many prospective passengers inferred that daily services would commence in December 2017 and continue indefinitely. ”
The train route will be from Brussels to Amsterdam, calling at Rotterdam. It is expected that the outbound journey will take 3 hours, 50 minutes, slicing nearly an hour from the existing service involving a change of trains in the Belgian capital. on the return route, there is a protracted stop in Brussels, where other passengers will join the train, adding around 20 minutes to the journey.
On an average weekday, there are 42 flights each way between the London airports and Amsterdam, including 15 from Heathrow, 11 from London City and 10 from Gatwick. The typical journey time is 75 minutes.
However, Mark Smith, founder of the Seat Sixty-One international rail website, expressed optimism about the international train’s prospects: “This is a route where high-speed rail can make real inroads into a market that airlines think is their own.
