Passengers taking the early train to Cologne via Brussels will soon be able to reach the Rhineland city an hour earlier.
London agent European Rail told Business Traveller that a passenger taking Eurostar’s 0619 departure from St Pancras will, from the start of the winter schedules on December 13, be able to reach Cologne at the earlier time of 1215.
Passengers change at Brussels Midi between Eurostar and a new and earlier ICE (see note 1 below) train service. Overall journey time (including the connection) is 4 hrs and 56 mins.
If not stopping in Cologne, European Rail can provide onward tickets on to various cities including Frankfurt, Hanover, Munich and Berlin.
At present the first rail link of the day between London and Cologne involves taking the 0730 Eurostar from St Pancras and changing to Thalys (see note 2 below) which provides an arrival into Cologne at 1315.
Another new ICE service provides a 1545 departure from Cologne which, following a change to Eurostar in Brussels, gets you back to London at 2003. Overall journey time (including the connection) is 5 hrs 18 mins.
One-way fares lead-in at €99 for first and €49 for standard class tickets according to demand. Return fares are double. Passengers can mix and match tickets.
It must be noted that tickets for the above-mentioned Eurostar/ICE London-Cologne train connection cannot at present be booked through eurostar.com. But the special fares are offered by train agents such as European Rail or from German Rail’s UK office or website.
Train timings cannot compete with air if you require a day trip. But they are feasible for anyone stopping over and who requires more reliable travel arrangements during the winter.
German Rail hopes to receive permission to operate its ICE into London from the end of 2013 (see online news October 19) which would considerably speed up journey times in the future.
The rail operator’s UK marketing executive Stefan Heulle told Business Traveller that the plan is to operate three trains a day from St Pancras from December 2013. “Two ICE trains, each of eight coaches, would run together as far as Brussels Midi. There the 16-coach train would be split with one section heading to Amsterdam via Rotterdam and the other bound for Frankfurt via Cologne.”
Report by Alex McWhirter
For more information visit europeanrail.com, bahn.co.uk.
Notes:
- ICE is German Rail’s high-speed train
- Thalys is based around the design of France’s high-speed TGV train. Thalys is jointly owned by the national railways of France, Holland, Belgium and Germany.
