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Belgian Railways Timetables Bruges to Lille Question

Posted by (Seattle, WA, US) on

Looking for departures from Bruges to Lille (We want to take the 1:00 TGV from Lille-Flandres to Paris). When I go to the DB site to look, there is only 1 direct train(thru Kortrijk) Bruges/Lille(11:34-12:52). All the others go through Brussels and are close to 3 hrs. Same on the SNCF site.

When on the Belgian Railways site (http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/) when I choose "Travel in Europe" as my timetable option, I get the same result. However, if I pick "Travel in Belgium" I get hourly departures that take 1:20 with a change in Courtrai. The trains are IC810 and IC19718 so I assume the IC is inter-city.

Am I missing something, or are these okay options? We aren't buying the Bruges/Lille leg until we get to Bruges, but I want to buy the Lille/Paris ticket now with a PREM. I just don't want a nasty surprise when we arrive in Bruges and try to buy the 9:34-10:55 Bruges/Lille ticket. Thanks!

Posted by
8700 posts

You can safely book your Paris-Lille Prem's fare. I just went to the DB site and found several choices for Brugge-Lille without going through Bruxelles. I don't know why you don't see the same ones. Be that as it may, no reservations are possible on IC trains. Buy your tickets in Brugge and get on any train you wish. Depending upon the time of day, the route may be direct, there may be one change in Kortrijk, or there may be as many as three changes.

Posted by
504 posts

Thanks for checking Tim! I'm wondering if it's because I'm still outside of the 90 day window (just barely). I'm traveling on July 6, so when I put that into DB I get only the one that leaves at 11:34 that doesn't go through Brussels(the other options are through Brussels). When I go back a week to June 29, I get many of the other options and they are all 1:20 or so and go through Kortrijk. I'm guessing they won't alter the schedule that drastically between June 29 and July 6, so I'll book the TGV train now!

An interesting side note...while messing around on SNCF(Lille-Paris) these past few days I was able to get fares beyond the 90 day window, but when I went forward with booking, it didn't give the print at home option, only the retrieve at station or print from kiosk options. I didn't go past that to see if it would let me book, but thought that was interesting.

Posted by
504 posts

Tim-Thanks for the help (and previous postings from you and others) on buying and printing tickets on SNCF. I just bought our Lille-Paris ticket for 17E PREM fare each and will buy our Bruges-Lille ticket when we arrive in Bruges!

Only problem I had was with my new Capital One card (I'll post that separately in General Europe) as my transaction was declined and when called it was declined as possible fraud. Grrr...

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