eurostar from london to amsterdam

This has been on the cards for a while but it hasn’t happened yet and I don’t think there’s a confirmed date yet.

Eurostar said recently on their twitter that they are planning to start before Easter ... but this can't really be taken as an official hard announcement. They have been running test trains.

Starting from 4 April. so just after Easter. Although in the reverse direction passport control will still have to happen in Brussels until it can be transferred to Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

These trains will also run non-stop from London to Brussels.

Tickets on sale from 20 February.

Here's today's BBC article.

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/business-43002908

That's awesome! I'm going to check into it on Feb 20th. I did already buy reservations (we have 3 country select rail pass) from London to Brussels. We were planning on taking the slow route from Brussels via Rotterdam, but if we could go direct that might be totally worth buying new reservations.

I've been following this via some of the Eurostar staff on Twitter. They've done their first practice runs. And they've said the response they're getting is great interest. Very exciting!!!

There are unfortunately two negatives, both listed in the BBC article.

• It is only London to Amsterdam that is direct, Amsterdam to London will still require changing at Brussels until late 2019, because of the British governments refusal to allow passport control to take place on the train.
• Departures from London are 08:31 and 17:31, neither very convenient if you are catching a connecting train to London.

There is likely to be a third train added in 2019. This plan is this will be the 'express' since it will only pick up in Brussels.

Eurostar and NS only expressed a desire for the passport control to be done in the Netherlands in 2016, and this requires a lot of treaty work. An official letter on the matter is here (in Dutch).