Bullshit Meter

Bullshit Meter: Heuro to run Paris - Amsterdam trains in 2030

Jon Worth

23 Oct 2026 • 2 min read

Heuro Train logo

Rather amazing this, but to run trains you... well, you need some trains.

Heuro Train thinks they will run a lot of high speed trains from Amsterdam to Paris in 2030, and have a capacity agreement with SNCF Réseau for the French part of their high speed route (see this from Treinreiziger), but they have no trains.

And I can see no way they can get any by 2030 either.

The render on the Heuro website looks rather like a AI slop take on an ex-DB class 406 ICE which have been available for sale second hand, but there is a reason DB got rid of these trains - because they were chronically unreliable. And, importantly, the sub-series that used to have permission to operate in France lost that authorisation.

And one of the reasons the trains were so problematic were issues (such as catching fire) when running on dc electrification. What does an Amsterdam - Paris route have? Lots of dc electrification in Netherlands and Belgium!

There are no other 300km/h secondhand trains available anywhere that I am aware of, let alone ones with TVM430, ETCS, 1.5kV, 3kV and 25kV.

But could Heuro get some new 300km/h trains by 2030?

Alstom France, forget it (and anyway Heuro says they will have single decker trains). Alstom Italy, well they would be behind Italo and Virgin Trains in the queue. Siemens is completing large orders for Egypt, Deutsche Bahn and Italo (Germany). Hitachi is finishing an order of ETR1000 trains for Trenitalia and is rumoured to be in pole position for the Renfe tender. And order from anyone else (Talgo, CAF, CRRC etc.) and you are not going to get the trains approved by 2030. Oh and were there someone that could build the trains, you have to finance them - and you will need a budget of €1.2-€1.5bn for the size of fleet they would need. Even Virgin Trains - that is massively more organisationally capable than a couple of startup dudes from Netherlands - is struggling on this point.

So I simply do not see a way this is possible, either with second hand or with new trains.