REPORTING – The Figaro invites you behind the scenes at Eurostar to celebrate the company’s 30th anniversary. For this first episode, we dive into the Brussels operations control centre, where the ballet of around a hundred daily trains across five countries is orchestrated.
“Your train number 9xxx will depart with a delay of 30 minutes.» If you happen to receive this text message before boarding a Eurostar train, it was sent to you from the Belgian capital. The company took advantage of its merger with Thalys in 2023 to consolidate its new “Control Room” into a single location, which brings together the activities previously split between Lille (for cross-Channel traffic) and Brussels (for continental traffic). In an office building opposite the Gare du Midi, the place looks like an air traffic control tower where PKBAs and e320s replace B737s and A320s and where platform numbers replace boarding gates.
On a giant screen, trains in circulation are tracked in real time across the five countries served by the new entity: France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Five countries and as many infrastructure managers (to which is added the Channel Tunnel, managed independently) with whom it is necessary to communicate constantly, particularly in the event of unforeseen events.
A hundred circulations per day
Jean-Marc De Jaeger / Le Figaro
“In the event of disruption on a high-speed line, they are the ones who grant authorization to temporarily use bypass routes on conventional tracks.“, underlines Malcolm Chabanais, head of the operations control center. The teams are also in contact with national rail operators (SNCB for Belgium, NS in the Netherlands, etc.) to ask them exceptionally to transport customers in the event of a delay, train cancellation or connection disruption.
The centre’s employees must also deal with technical and regulatory constraints. When a train has a technical problem, it is not possible to replace it with any train at the last minute. The old cross-Channel trains, called e300s, are not approved to run beyond Brussels. The e320s, for their part, can run in the five countries while the trains formerly bearing the Thalys logo cannot use the Channel Tunnel. The impact of disruptions on the schedules of drivers and cabin crew must also be taken into account and, if necessary, reserve staff can be mobilised at short notice.
Beyond traffic management, the “Control Room” includes a department dedicated to external communication. It is the department that sends an SMS and/or an email to customers whose train is delayed or cancelled. The team is supported by another located in London that takes care of customer service and social media management. The Control Room is also the place where the train managers take their breaks and prepare for their next departure over a coffee, all while alternating between French, English, Dutch and German. A linguistic diversity that reflects the European dimension of Eurostar.
TO LISTEN – The interview: Jean-Marc De Jaeger, journalist at Figaro Voyage,’s top tips for discovering Europe by train
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