Brussels to Luxembourg - why no fares?

[Techniquest]

Hi all,

As part of the research I'm doing for trips in February and March, I've been looking at Brussels to Luxembourg. Full itinery not planned yet, but I wanted to know fares still. Only after a single fare, so I popped onto www.sncb.be to look it up.

Eventually I got it to work, but then it refused to accept Luxembourg when I went to the prices. To Aachen, yes it would give me a single for €20.60. It'll tell me the times though

www.bahn.de will only tell me it's an international fare, unsurprisingly.

Anyone able to tell me what I'm missing?

 

[Greenback]

You need to select International Tickets on the purchase screen. I found a price of 37.60 euro fully flex, for next week.

 

[Techniquest]

Ahhhh, so that's what I've missed. D'oh!

Thanks for that, looked it up and sure enough it is only €37.60 in 2nd or €57.60 in 1st. I wonder if it's worth the extra ching, 2nd class on the trains typically used on the route is quite good.

 

[johnnychips]

Ahhhh, so that's what I've missed. D'oh!

Thanks for that, looked it up and sure enough it is only €37.60 in 2nd or €57.60 in 1st. I wonder if it's worth the extra ching, 2nd class on the trains typically used on the route is quite good.

Agreed. Probably not worth it.

 

[Greenback]

My last trip on SNCB was, I thought, surprisingly comfortable and spacious in 2nd class. But then again I remember the trains in the early 1990's with the hard plastic seats!

Mrs Greenback always says that 2nd class in Europe is like 1st class here, so I hope she will be impressed with her birthday trip in first class in Germany later this year!

 

[Techniquest]

Hope so! Now to decide when to do the trip, and whether it's a case of flying over to Luxembourg then train to Brussels and Eurostar home, the other way round or what to do!

 

[33056]

Food for thought but have you thought of Eurostar out and back to Brussels then go Brussels to Luxembourg via Namur one way and Gouvy / Liege the other way? The line between Luxembourg and Liege is a nice run and the two-hourly IR service is loco-hauled, I think the hourly IC service on the other route is mostly AM96 units though there are some hauled services.

With regards to flying to / from Luxembourg, I might be wrong but you could struggle to get a flight at a reasonable price. In all the years I have been going over to mainland Europe I can't ever recollect seeing cheap flights to Lux and the likes of Easy Jet and Ryanair don't fly there.

 

[daniel78]

I did Brussels to Luxembourg in November. I found 2nd class very comfortable; 2+2 seating, comfy seats, plenty of table seats if you get on at Brussels Midi.

If you're arriving at Brussels on the Eurostar, you could consider buying Eurostar to Any Belgian Station, then a single from Arlon (the last Belgian station) to Luxembourg. The Eurostar will only be about a fiver more, Arlon - Luxembourg cost me 10 euros.

Other tips you might find useful.

The train I got had one double decker carriage at the front of the train. Maybe one at the back too, but when I saw the train arriving I started running to the front end of the platform so I didn't look properly. Bear this in mind if you want to grab a good upper deck seat.

I was a tad annoyed when having been sitting in my seat for several minutes as the train started to fill up, a guard came through the carriage and started putting reserved stickers on the windows of 32 seats, including mine. I grabbed another window seat so no harm done.

If buying online, try the French tgv site. When I went onto the b-rail site for my Arlon-Luxembourg ticket, the site offered a print at home ticket, but wanted to charge 3 euros for paying by card. On the French site I just paid the cost of the ticket and no more, despite the ticket apparently being posted from France.

This may be a good time for a rail enthusiast to do this trip. During the journey it looked like a number of new stations were being built on the line, and a couple of very small ones were being expanded. I think this was in the suburbs of Brussels, or the area just outside.

 

[Greenback]

Food for thought but have you thought of Eurostar out and back to Brussels then go Brussels to Luxembourg via Namur one way and Gouvy / Liege the other way? The line between Luxembourg and Liege is a nice run and the two-hourly IR service is loco-hauled, I think the hourly IC service on the other route is mostly AM96 units though there are some hauled services.

I think that is a good suggestion, I would go for that if it were me.

With regards to flying to / from Luxembourg, I might be wrong but you could struggle to get a flight at a reasonable price. In all the years I have been going over to mainland Europe I can't ever recollect seeing cheap flights to Lux and the likes of Easy Jet and Ryanair don't fly there.

I agree again. Unless there is a compelling need to fly, I would take the train both ways. And I have never seen any reasonable fares to Luxembourg either!

I did Brussels to Luxembourg in November. I found 2nd class very comfortable; 2+2 seating, comfy seats, plenty of table seats if you get on at Brussels Midi.

Yes, plenty of leg room, spacious, lots of tables, everything our trains are not!

If you're arriving at Brussels on the Eurostar, you could consider buying Eurostar to Any Belgian Station, then a single from Arlon (the last Belgian station) to Luxembourg. The Eurostar will only be about a fiver more, Arlon - Luxembourg cost me 10 euros.

Good advice! Also, the last time we went on the Eurostar to Brussels, we nipped down the stairs from the platform, and wer eon the main concourse within minutes. As we were waiting for our train, a Luxembourg service arrived at the adjacent platform. A seamless and quick interchange!

 

[WestCoast]

You can fly to Hahn Airport, which is around 1h30m by bus to Luxembourg and is a massive Ryanair hub. Though I'd take the train personally on this journey.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The newer Belgian stock is excellent in standard , but to get the true SNCB experience you have to get one of the older maroon / beetroot colour 2 car sets which have almost vertical plastic seats in both classes ! (not long for this world I think) - M6 I believe.

Apart from the fetching "root" livery , they have a really old feel to them , and often carry an unofficial graffiti livery - this doesn't stop them being turned out on longer distance runs such as to Namur (saw one at Midi last year on such a working - and as a 2 car only !)

 

[Greenback]

Ah yes, those must be the ones I remember! Saw a couple at Antwerp Central (upstairs) last year and they brought shivers down my spine!

 

[Max]

The newer Belgian stock is excellent in standard , but to get the true SNCB experience you have to get one of the older maroon / beetroot colour 2 car sets which have almost vertical plastic seats in both classes ! (not long for this world I think) - M6 I believe.

I definitely encountered one of these as part of a journey from Lille to Brussels. Pretty horrible it was too!

 

[Techniquest]

Something like this two-car thing?


DSCN0055 by 43002, on Flickr

I assume the AM96 units are these things (not a good photos I know, was a very quick grab and go shot), which if so means I'll have a comfortable journey


DSCN0086 by 43002, on Flickr

As for the flying to Lux, I'm glad I'm not the only one who hasn't found reasonable flight prices! Training it both ways, that is pretty much the plan now. Basically in March I'm flying to Amsterdam, do what I can in the Netherlands the next day, next day down to Luxembourg to do what can be done there and the final day in Belgium to do what I can there. Finally it's the Eurostar back from Brussels to London and home

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Worth going Luxemburg City - Namur - Charleroi if you want see a really run Belgian city - terraced houses , slag heaps and steelworks ! Pretty grim. (but interesting if you like that kind of thing) -

 

[atillathehunn]

The maroon ones alluded to are the maroon ones on this page:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:SNCB_Classical_EMU


They are ancient and rather good fun, but not the best train around. Usually accompanied by a series of loud clunking noises, and the seats are bolt upright. And as has been said, usually completely covered in graffiti.

They used to be the mainstay on the route from Maastricht to Liege when they pulled the intercity to Brussels last year, but we've been 'upgraded' recently to slightly newer and longer units (and cleaner!).

The AM86 (the ones that look like a pencil with a rubber on the end) are more comfortable, though when they get going they do sound like a washing machine on spin cycle.

Charleroi not Belgium's finest town, though the area around it is quite post industrial in places. There's a town on the line from Liege to Charleroi that really does like something out of a dystopian novel.

To the original poster, you can get some good new track covered in the north of the Netherlands, between Leylstad and Zwolle.

Most of the trains operated by CFL that run from Brussels to Luxembourg via Liege are still loco hauled, though usually with just 3 or 4 single deck coaches for company.

 

[Techniquest]

Thanks for that information, most useful. Think I'll set up a separate thread for general discussion though on Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, since the original purpose of this thread has been dealt with.

As for those EMUs, I did see a significant amount of them during my Brussels trip and saw a lot with graffiti on them. The AM86s are definitely comfortable, and I loved that way of describing them

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

Techniquest, that's a modernised 'beetroot' so doesn't count. The older ones are 3+2 seating, hard brown plastic, and are complete from signage from 50s. SNCB/NMBS have only just got rid of the predecessor units, which had silver, ribbed sides of stainless steel and date from the mid-50s!

The only thing to add to all the advice here is that I believe the connection fare from Eurostar to Any Belgian Station is now £7.50 and is valid either on the day of arrival or the following day: so you can have a stopover before venturing out. The run through the Ardennes from Namur to Arlon has some great, scenery: forests and hills. Looks a bit like New England!

 

[Techniquest]

Thanks for that advice, think that route features in a very rough plan already. Could easily spend 3 days going around Belgium just doing Class 41s, those things sound pretty hellfire on YouTube