The most recent development phase on rail lines in Europe will mean that passengers travelling between Amsterdam and Brussels will have the option complete the international train journey in 1 hour 53 minutes as of December 13 2010.

Rail company Thalys will also put the Belgian capital 1 hour 47 minutes away from Cologne in Germany.

The new high-speed rail network, stretching between Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands and Antwerp in Belgium, will provide Thalys wide acceleration conditions which could see the train run as fast as 300km/h (186mph), thus becoming one the world’s fastest trains.

Because of the speed increase, a shaving of 49 minutes is expected from the present total time between Brussels and Amsterdam as well as 29 minutes between Cologne and Brussels.

Thalys is aiming to increase by 65 percent its traffic between Amsterdam and Paris, and a 30 percent between Cologne and Paris. It is also planning to expand its frequency of services between Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels in order to achieve this, thus posing a direct challenge to the passenger carriers which fly the route.

In terms of carbon footprint improvement, Thalys has claimed that the rise in speed and new services may promote carbon emission reduction by 25,700 tonnes for 500,000 travellers.

Despite high speed train service being seen as expensive to operate due to the prohibitive initial and ongoing cost of infrastructures, European high speed rail has experienced considerable activity during 2009.

Earlier in the year, the European Union revealed that it would allow any rail company to compete for a route within its member states as of January 1, 2010.
Europe High Speed Rail Systems:

ICE, Germany – Top speed 300km/h

TGV, France – Top speed 300 km/h

Eurostar, France/Belgium/UK – Top speed 300km/h

Trenitalia, Italy – Top speed 300km/h

AVE, Spain – Top speed 300km/h

Subscribe for free and recieve the latest Self-Catering-Breaks news and stories
Filed under Europe News, Travel News

• Spring launch for UK high speed rail plans
• Local Airports To Be Linked With Planned High-speed Rail
• High-Speed Rail Goes Through Another Hurdle
• Eurostar may experience competition with Veolia and Trenitalia
• Striking Move Stemming From The Largest Rail Queue
• Looming Strike At Southern Railways
• Train Travel Is Back In Style
• Dulles Airport Gets Acquainted With New Train System
• Shortage of Rental Vehicle for Europe in 2010
• London police officers’ £107m in train rides

This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Europe News, Travel News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.