SNCF Voyageurs and SNCB are relaunching a slow train connection between Paris and Brussels from Thursday thanks to the Ouigo Train Classique offer, two and a half years after the interruption of a similar service.
The French and Belgian companies will offer three round trips per day for a journey of around three hours, compared to 1 hour 22 minutes using the high-speed line.
Paris-Brussels becomes the third connection offered by Ouigo Train Classique, after Paris-Nantes and Paris-Rennes, and the first international.
It will be made like the others, with old Corail trains brought up to date – and painted in pink and blue, the colors of Ouigo – for prices ranging from 10 to 59 euros per seat. Children under 12 years old will benefit from a fixed rate of 8 euros.
The train, which will take the classic railway line, will serve the stations of Creil, Aulnoye-Aymeries and Mons between the two capitals.
This is not the first time that a service of this type has been offered. In July 2022, Thalys – now Eurostar – put an end to Izy after six years of existence, an offer with similar outlines with journeys completed in 2.5 hours.
The service was interrupted during the Covid-19 pandemic and then relaunched, albeit timidly, in May 2021.
SNCB and SNCF had announced their intention to relaunch this line in July 2023 to allow “an intermediate travel time between the road and the high-speed train”.
Paris and Brussels were the first two capitals to be linked by railway in 1846.
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