New slow train service between Paris and Brussels to be launched Dec 2024

That's good news and better than the current round the houses two change slow route between the two cjties.
Then connect on the inter city service from Brussels to Amsterdam, so the whole Paris to Amsterdam route can again be done on classic trains.

This is basically a return of the old Brussel - Paris EC trains that used this route prior to the TGV. SNCF and NMBS abolished these when Thalys was started in order to avoid competition with their premium services. They now realise that if they do not offer an alternative to the fast, but expensive Thalys someone else will. There are several other companies that want to start competing services (high speed, as well as conventional) on this route, and SNCF and NMBS know that they will not be able to sabotage new entrants indefinitely.

The plan is to use NMBS I11 carriages though, not rehabbed old trains from the 70ies. Those I11 carriages are rather nice actually.

Just to avoid confusion, SNCB and NMBS are two names for the Belgian national rail service, resp. in French and Dutch. Belgium is a multilingual country, with German as a third official language (spoken by less than 2% of the population, in a small area bordering Germany).

I used to take this train frequently in the mid-80s and the fastest run I remember was about 2h30. I think it stopped only once. Most runs were 2h45 to 3h, with 3 stops, as listed by Kim.

Great news. This gives one a choice. Since I stay at Gare du Nord anyway, super convenient in taking this slower train.

Until i see the pricing I will withhold judgement but I have noticed on some of the other train routes within France the savings for the slower train are so low that it's not worth it IMHO.

Exactly, my first time going to Brussels was in 1984, coming from Düsseldorf, transferring in Cologne, obviously, arriving in Brussels just before noon. All I remember that the ride once over the border was close to 3 hours.

Belgium has 3 official administrative languages. When one is on a Thalys train passing through Belgium, one hears the announcements given in 5 languages.

what is the 5th one?

Flemish...the announcements are made in Flemish too. That was what I heard with the other 4 languages in the late 1990s and in 2001 on the Thalys trains.

The official languages of Belgium are Flemish/Dutch, French/Wallon and German. That makes 3 languages in which announcements can be made. I guess English was the 4th one, but I’m very curious to know which was the 5th.

I counted 5. I understand the announcements totally made in German and English, and most of that in French, say 70%. I recognise Dutch when I hear it, but, obviously, cannot understand anything. Since Flemish sounds similar but still different from Dutch, that was the 5th language.

Flemish is not a 5th language, and no, announcements are not made in 5 languages.

The official languages in Belgium are Dutch, French and German. And in trains announcements are made based on where the train is, so either Dutch, French or German, or sometimes Dutch and French.
International services get announcements in Dutch, French, English and German.

There is no point in having announcements both in "Dutch" and in "Flemish" as they would sound identical.

When we talk about Flemish we just mean "the way Dutch sounds when a Belgian speaks it".

The languages may sound identical but are not . Listening closely you would hear the difference between Flemish and Dutch.

Earlier this year or some time year on public TV here was a series filmed some years ago which happened to bump into. It was called "Professor T" (sophisticated Krimi) which at first sounded Dutch to me. The more I listened, the more I felt it was not Dutch. My guess was wrong, too many words said by the cast sounded closer to German. There were more hints in that episode's plot telling me that Dutch was not being spoken. At the end of the programs, the credits, etc appear. The program /series came out of Antwerp, ie, the cast spoke Flemish.

When one listens to train announcements , there is a slight pause , a second or two, between the different languages. That was evident in hearing each of the 5 languages. That Thalys train was going from France (where I boarded) to Germany via Belgium.

I’m a Dutch national, I live 10 km from the Belgian border and I have several Belgian relatives. I’m also a frequent traveler on the international trains and I speak Dutch, English, German, French and a bit of Spanish.
I can assure you that announcements on trains are not made in both Flemish and Dutch. There would be absolutely no point because the announcement would be exactly the same.
This is because Flemish is not a separate language, it’s a dialect of the Dutch language. Just like, Wallon-French, the French spoken in Belgian is also a dialect from French and not an official language.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_dialects#:~:text=Flemish%20(Vlaams)%20is%20a%20Low,Dutch%20(Zuid%2DNederlands).

I defer to your point that an announcement would not be made in a dialect, since Flemish is a dialect of Dutch. Thanks for the information.

"Flemish" is not a language, it is indeed a dialect. And strictly speaking just the dialect of Flanders. In Antwerpen they speak Brabantish (just like they do in Breda or Eindhoven) and in Limburg they speak Limburgish. Although recently the term Flemish has started to take the meaning of any Belgian accented Dutch.
As such there is no "Flemish", just like there is no Swiss German either.

When a train conductor in Flanders makes an announcement he will however not do it in dialect. it will be in Dutch, albeit with a local accent. Just like a conductor in Scotland might make an announcement in English with a Scottish accent.

What can happen is that there is first an automated announcement, which will use a professional voice that is close to standard in accent, and then the conductor afterwards makes his own announcement in his local accent. To people unfamiliar with the language they may sound like different languages.
Also often, especially on international trains, the announcements in Dutch are made by persons with very poor command of the language. Interestingly the DB conductors on the ICE are often better at this than the Belgian conductors on the Thalys.

Being Flemish, I think the explanation given by WengenK is correct and complete. Flemish is now a term used for all Belgian-accented variants of the Dutch language.
For historical reasons, French-speaking Belgians frequently have a poor command of the Dutch language, and some of their train announcements can be barely understandable.

To Fred's remarks about the language he heard in a TV series, certain forms of dialect/slang can of course be enhanced to serve a plot, but we are talking about more official forms of a language here.
In written form, there is much less difference between Dutch and Flemish than between the King's English and American English.

Thanks for the explanation. If you are familiar with that Krimi series "Professor T" then you recognise and know the language spoken , which I pointed out.

“Thanks for the explanation. If you are familiar with that Krimi series "Professor T" then you recognise and know the language spoken , which I pointed out.”

I do know (and love!) the Professor T serie and I watched all 3 seasons. The language spoken in the serie is Dutch. Depending on the actor and/or the character, this Dutch is spoken with a strong or not so strong Flemish accent.