Direct Eindhoven - Bruxelles Train

There is definitely a more positive spirit around cross border rail between Netherlands and Belgium. But could there be a direct Eindhoven - Bruxelles train, as Thierry Aartsen suggests?

Don't get me wrong: this is a good idea.

The question is how you do it, and indeed if you can.

This is the area on OpenRailwayMap.

The easiest route would be via Breda and Antwerpen, like this. 163km, all electrified. But there are problems.

The line through Antwerpen Centraal is at capacity, so no more paths there. You would have to combine this train with another one. How about you add a Eindhoven - Breda service to the Rotterdam - Breda - Bruxelles EuroCity at Breda station?

Problem. The EuroCity is a locomotive hauled train, using SNCB (so Belgian) stock, and you cannot couple and uncouple those trains easily.

You could theoretically use NS (so Dutch) ICNG units instead, and run 1 half to Eindhoven - Breda - Bruxelles, and the other half Rotterdam - Breda - Bruxelles. But NS only has 22 cross border ICNG trains, maybe at a stretch enough (given these trains also run Bruxelles - Amsterdam Zuid, not via Breda), but even if no new trains would be need that would mean only NS units used for the cross border services, meaning the Belgians are going to have to dip into their pockets to cross subsidise their Dutch counterparts. Politically tricky.

Dutch public transport association Rover suggests a simple but radical solution, but one that will surely gain little favour in Rotterdam - simply turn the EuroCity Bruxelles - Rotterdam into a Bruxelles - Eindhoven, but I cannot see that working.

Or they could try another route - go via Weert instead. Like this, 159km.

But here there is a different problem: the cross border section, about 7km from Hamont to Weert, is not electrified (see OpenRailwayMap here). And even were you to fix that, you would still need some trains to operate the service. But at least you would avoid the Antwerpen Centraal bottleneck.

So that explains it. Good idea, but I do not believe it, because I do not see the decisions being taken to actually make the service a reality.