Brussels - Amsterdam changes

[OwlMan]

The Brussels to Amsterdam Intercity service is going to use the high speed line in The Netherlands in future. It will no longer call at Roosendaal and Dordrecht but will call at Brecht and Breda instead.

http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.3163766
The Brussels Amsterdam Intercity service will in future take the high speed rail route on Dutch soil cutting the journey time between the European capital and the commercial capital of the Netherlands by half an hour. The total journey time will be cut to under three hours.


Bart Crols of the Belgian rail holding NMBS: "We have carried out extensive tests. We're ready for it! From Antwerp the Intercity will take the high speed train route to Amsterdam."

The change of route that starts on 9 April means the service will call at the Noorderkempen Station in Brecht (Belgium) and at Breda (The Netherlands). It will also stop at Brussels Airport Zaventem. The Intercity will no longer call at Roosendaal and Dordrecht in the Netherlands. From Antwerp passengers for these destinations will have to take an omnibus.

Sixteen daily services are planned. Four will terminate in the Dutch political capital, The Hague.

 

[AlexNL]

The fare structure will change as well. As of March 20th, there will be two types of tickets: Full Flex (comparable to an Anytime in the UK) and Early Bird saver tickets. The Early Bird tickets are available until 7 days before departure.

http://nieuws.ns.nl/nieuwe-tarieven...gesnelheidslijn-vroegboekers-reizen-goedkoop/

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

Will you still be able through trains from Brussels to the Hague?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The map in the information link shows 3 per day from the Hague, and 16 per day from Amsterdam, all using the HSL south of Rotterdam.
What isn't obvious is if the new Early Bird fares are "booked train only", or on any train that day (after 0900) on the route as the Day Return fares are now.

 

[Spoorslag '70]

Kind of. 4 trains per day will terminate/start at Den Haag HS instead of Amsterdam, running via the conventional line from Rotterdam Centraal.

 

[paddington]

Are the new fares higher than current fares?

I've always managed to use special offers on this line so generally paid €15-€20 or less, or it made more sense to use combinations of local tickets splitting at Roosendaal.

 

[dutchflyer]

As its still not 20/3 yet, details are unknown.
Of course, needless to even ask, there are/will be thorugh tickets from ANY station in NL to ANY station in BE (and LUX, and most of n-w DE etc.). You can also use happyrail.com (a kind of bluespotted hanky or trainline or so) for online booking with more generous acceptance of foreign cards and even offer bonus-points to save for future discounts.
As the current service has quite big losses, it also seems inevitable that in general, on the whole, ticket price will be higer as now-esp. when one compares currently still available special low fares with the new ones. It has been stated that around 25% of ALL tickets sold by NS-international are to Antwerpen (the usual saturday/sunday dayout-the only time when trains are full and standing).
The for many much cheaper split-combo at Roosendaal (as from there domestic BE-fares with a low surcharge applies) can still be used, but only via that line and thus much slower.
There will be NO such thing (which also exists at Maastricht and Aachen, but not at other towns where BE-trains go to) via Breda.
I have only read here in NL press etc. and these stated that as long as you keep to the 7-days advance rule, there are NO quota and NO fixed-trains, making them thus rather flexible. But there seem to be some strange features in the new system (based on zones in tens of KMs)-but for you Brits that should be no real surprise-ex-BR has millions of them. Its like quite big jumps when one just goes over a zone boundary etc. The usual traveller-organisations are bound to give decent advice and tips on that as soon as the details are released.
FLIXbus, already operating a dense service NL-BE, has said it will up its daily departures to 25 (but thats likely from many other routes not duplicating the train service) and offer lower fares.

 

[AlexNL]

Treinreixiger.nl have done some digging and have been able to come up with a comparison between current prices and future prices.

https://www.treinreiziger.nl/ic-bru...-70-duurder-enkeltjes-juist-tot-50-goedkoper/

 

[AlexNL]

The people of LOCOV (an advisory board for NS) have received a request for feedback from NS, and have provided as such. This can be found on the LOCOV website, in Dutch.

In their appendix ("bijlage") there is a table showing the new fares structure:

(Table showing the new pricing matrix for IC Brussels services)
Standaard tarief = full flex, or Anytime

The new "early bird" pricing tier is based on a number of "zones", while the "full flex" pricing tier is solely based on distance. On "peak days" (Fri-Sun) the early bird prices are slightly higher than on the other days. This leads to an interesting anomaly: during weekends a trip from Breda to Noorderkempen is cheaper with "full flex" (Anytime) than it is with an early bird ticket.

With fares like these it becomes interesting to look at ticket splitting at Noorderkempen. Especially during weekends SNCB's weekend ticket can be very interesting.

 

[Groningen]

The station in Belgium is not called Brecht, but Noorderkempen. At this moment is has a shuttle between that station and Antwerpen. Rushhour 2 times an hour; otherwise 1.