TGVs Bruxelles - France, the unloved other high speed train from Belgium

In the Newsletter this week
Analysis: TGVs Bruxelles - France, the unloved other high speed train from Belgium
Bullshit Meter: NS to operate trains Amsterdam - Utrecht - Germany from 2028
Good week: Trains from Luxembourg find new life in Romania
Also a Good week: Stadler's first EURO DuFour locomotive for SBB Cargo leaves the factory
Bullying this week: Italo wants security by the end of June or they're out (they say)
Bad week: Sexism scandal on Milano trams
Very bad week: More problems for the Leipzig - Chemnitz upgrade
Photo of the week: #FensterAuf heading for Sežana
Calendar: Coevorden - Neuenhaus #CrossBorderRail to open 13th December

Newsletter 021, Friday 19th June 2026.
Subscriber-only newsletter, sent every Friday at 14:00 CET.

TGVs Bruxelles - France, the unloved other high speed train from Belgium

Last Friday I went to a 30th birthday party. There was even a cake!

Some very important people were in attendance, namely France's Minister of Transport Philippe Tabarot, Belgium's Minister of Mobility and Climate Jean-Luc Crucke, President of SNCF Jean Castex and SNCB CEO Sophie Dutordoir.

TGVs from Bruxelles Midi to stations in France other than Paris started three decades ago. 9 trains a day depart from Bruxelles Midi, bound for 28 different French stops, with Lille Europe, Aéroport Charles de Gaulle 2 TGV and Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy being the best served (although the last Bruxelles Midi - Lille Europe service of the day being at 18:09 is a bone of contention that remained unaddressed at the event).

The problem is all of this is rather overshadowed by the 55% SNCF owned but formally separate Eurostar whose formerly Thalys-branded services ply the much more regular and more lucrative Bruxelles Midi - Paris Gare du Nord route, making the TGVs to the rest of France their rather forgotten little brother.

The news - if we can call it that - from the 30 year birthday event is one more station will be added to the network served from Bruxelles Midi in summer 2027, namely Basel SBB in Switzerland. Three days a week one of the Bruxelles - Strasbourg TGVs will be extended south to Basel. Better than nothing, but hardly a revolution.

The real issues are ones no one was especially keen to talk about at the event.

"We in France are slow installing ETCS" Tabarot admitted on the panel, looking at Crucke - because Belgium has 100% of its network ETCS equipped.

Indeed the only trains now running in passenger traffic in Belgium that are not ETCS equipped are the TGV Réseau sets that everyone was enjoying the cake to celebrate. These trains date from the mid 1990s and are the very same units running these routes since their inception, and both inside and out 30 years of service have taken their toll.

Castex on the panel was however proud to announce that the new double deck TGV-M trains will replace the Réseau trains "from 2029" and testing has begun already, something I can confirm having seen one running through Tournai earlier this year.

However listening to all of this, something started to nag at me, and I had the chance to ask Belgian Minister Crucke about it in the margins of the event.

All trains in Belgium have to have ETCS installed by December 2027, so what are you going to do if the Réseau trains do not have it (and there are no plans to install it on the three voltage versions of these trains), and TGV-M that does are only arriving from 2029? "I have a law to respect" he stated curtly, and how the issue will be handled will be subject to "negotiation". No one knows yet, in other words.

And as if that were not headache enough, at the moment SNCF has 20 200m long TGV Réseau trains that are equipped with 3kV electrification systems for Belgium, and those are to be replaced by just 15 200m TGV-M. So while Castex was right to flag up the increased number of seats available with double deck trains replacing single deck ones, there is not going to be much scope for any new routes from Bruxelles with a fleet this small. SNCB is putting some money into improvements to its Forest depot to maintain the new fleet though.

As I settled back into my worn but still comfortable seat on a TGV Réseau train back to Marne-la-Vallée after the event, the words of a SNCF employee there when boarding earlier in the day stuck in mind. "Tell Castex we are the forgotten ones here," she said to me when I chatted about my trip as my ticket was checked. Ultimately I agree with her sentiment.

Despite the cake and the pleasant words, I am still not at all convinced that these Bruxelles - France TGVs are about to become anything other than the unloved other high speed train to France from Belgium.

Bullshit Meter: NS to operate trains Amsterdam - Utrecht - Germany from 2028

This one was widely reported this week, and for once I think this is actually going to happen!

The line from the Netherlands - Germany border to Duisburg (OpenRailwayMap) is currently being rebuilt, but once that is done there will be capacity to run some more trains, and at the moment the only international long distance passenger trains on this route are ICEs Amsterdam - Frankfurt (Main) that run every two hours. There is at least the potential for a Amsterdam - Utrecht - Arnhem - Emmerich - Duisburg - Düsseldorf - Köln train the other hours, and NS has ordered some 200km/h ICNG EMUs from Alstom that would work well for such a service.

Some problem could crop up in the meantime of course, but I think this plan is achievable!

All previous Bullshit Meter posts can be found here.

Good week: Trains from Luxembourg find new life in Romania

What do you do with trains that have reached the end of life on your network? The answer in Luxembourg is to sell the trains - to Romania in this case. As Railcolor reports, the latest sale concerns 8 Class 3000 electric locomotives built by Alstom in the late 1990s, and further Z2 Class 2000 EMUs that date from the early 1990s. The first of the Z2s are already in service with Regio Călători.

Interestingly the Z2 EMUs are the same as units that were in service with SNCF. But SNCF is not going to sell any of those to Romania as, unlike Luxembourg, they have a rule preventing the sale of trains containing asbestos.

Meanwhile some ex-NS carriages are also to find their way from Netherlands to Bulgaria, as reported by Treinreiziger.

Also a Good week: Stadler's first EURO DuFour locomotive for SBB Cargo leaves the factory

SBB has placed an order for 36 of these four axle, 160km/h dual voltage electric freight locomotives from Stadler - the news release is here. 22 of the 36 will have a battery pack for last mile operations in freight yards, and the fleet might be as large as 129 locomotives if all options in the contract are taken up.

The really interesting point however is what this might do to the locomotive market in Europe. Passenger versions of the DuFour can reach 230km/h, and while the precise weight of the locomotive for SBB Cargo has not been stated, it promises lower track wear and a lower weight than the Siemens Vectron, the main competing product in the four axle mixed traffic cross border electric locomotive market. Despite the release of the Vectron X, the Vectron platform is now getting a little long in the tooth...

Bullying this week: Italo wants security by the end of June or they're out (they say)

Here we go again.

This time in Handelsblatt, Italo CEO Gianbattista La Rocca is demanding an answer from the Bundesnetzagentur by the end of June for a multi-year capacity allocation for the company's entry into the German market.

I examined all of this in depth in my newsletter two weeks ago, and this is all getting rather tiring. Trying to enter a new market, and doing so in a threatening, bullying manner is not clever. Also the notion that Siemens will allocate the production capacity to someone else if there is a further delay strikes me as a bit of a stretch - I am not aware of masses of companies in a queue to buy Velaro high speed trains just now.

Bad week: Sexism scandal on Milano trams

As reported by The Guardian, tram drivers in Milano have been sharing CCTV pictures of female passengers on WhatsApp, and commenting on the women's appearance. Not only grim, but obviously against the rules of how CCTV images are to be used. One staff member has been suspended, and others are under investigation.

Very bad week: More problems for the Leipzig - Chemnitz upgrade

Some railway lines just make your heart sink when you read something about them. Leipzig - Chemnitz (OpenRailwayMap) in Sachsen is one such line.

80 track-km separate the two cities, with 611k inhabitants in Leipzig and 246k in Chemnitz. A solid train connection between the two is a no brainer.

But no, it is a never ending saga. Electrify? Fully? Partially? Double track the last single track sections? Or not? Battery trains? Maybe? But then the costs go up before anyone concludes anything, and so the project might be scaled back.

But by the time they decide to do that, I'd wager something else has gone wrong.

Photo of the week: #FensterAuf heading for Sežana

Western Slovenia might not be well connected by rail - the lines are slow and non electrified. But if you get one of the old trains you get some excellent views out of the windows you can open!

Calendar: Coevorden - Neuenhaus #CrossBorderRail to open 13th December

It's on Youtube, so it has to happen!

Thanks Walter van Holst for the reminder about this one - trains will run again from Coevorden in Netherlands to Neuenhaus in Germany, and onwards to Bad Bentheim.

The bridge I pictured with my drone is currently being repaired, ready for the start of services.

Photo Rights

VR train in Haparanda by Joel Savilaakso, used with permission.
CFL Class 3000 picture by Jean-Marie Ottelé, from this video, used with permission.
CFL Z2 EMUs picture by Christian Knop, used with permission.
Stadler Euro DuFour locomotive picture from Stadler press materials.
All other photos by Jon Worth.
Bullshit Meter images always have photo rights listed directly on the image.