Now we just need a unified booking system which tailors all connections between every possible location in the EU (and some other, i.e, the UK and Switzerland). Not just tailoring long distance but the whole mobility chain. From International trains all the way down to rental bikes for the last mile.

How much information can Thom pack into 16 minutes? Wow, cool. I wish we had half as many intercity train operators in the USA.

Another benefit of the new ICE L coaches on the Intercity Berlijn is that the train will be able to run at 230 km/h between Hanover and Berlin since it uses the high speed line for that segment. Currently trains are limited to 200 km/h due to the top speed of the consist.

Competition drove Renfe to improve so much in such a short time, and the Frecciarosa is already prompting change from SNCF. Predict the same in the Netherlands.

Its so nice that you pointed out the DSB service that'll be coming in the future. When the Fehmarn tunnel opens in 2029-2030, it'll reduce the journey times by an additional 2 hours to 7.5. At that point, and even more so if speed upgrades between Bad Bentheim and Amsterdam are put on the table in the Netherlands, it could potentially mean an upgrade to 2 trains per day, allowed by the shorter journey times. The upcoming years will also be really exciting for the railways in Denmark like you hinted at. Of course we're getting the Ceske Drahy train from Prague extended to Copenhagen and vice versa, along with getting the Amsterdam train from DSB. Additionally a direct service from Copenhagen to Oslo in Norway has been put forward for 2027-28, though it is unclear who would run this train and with what equipment. The current bets are either on DSB's talgo trains or SJ's Zefiro Express EMU's. DSB has ordered 16 train consists from Talgo but as of now its unclear how they'll all be allocated. On a similar note DB expanded their order of ICE-L Talgo trains to 79 consists, including announcing intentions to use these trains on services to Copenhagen in that bunch once the Fehmarn tunnel line is finished (so 2030 onwards). Info is very limited but DSB and DB are already close partners. My main assumption for this is that DB might end up taking on some express trains from Copenhagen to Hamburg and then continue those trains to relevant destinations in Germany. The 2 main contenders for this are Berlin and Cologne. Copenhagen to Berlin is a very highly requested route for both leisure and business travel and people have been begging for direct trains ever since the previous ones got shafted. Plus with Germany imposing a new minimum speed of 230km/h for intercity trains on the Hamburg to Berlin line, DSB's trains with their just 200km/h locomotives won't cut it compared to DB's or CD's locomotives which go 230km/h. At a travel time of just 4.5 hours once the Fehmarn tunnel is finished, that would even make the journey somewhat competitive with flying. And Cologne is another popular destination for business travel and a notable railway hub for western Europe. Time will tell how this pans out. But this part is mostly speculation. And on the open access side things get interesting. Snälltåget, a Swedish open access operator that already runs night trains between Malmö and Berlin has put forward plans to run 2 day trains per day between Malmö and Hamburg from 2025, and 3 trains per day domestically in Denmark from Copenhagen and or Helsingør to Aarhus from 2027, right as the line to Aarhus, Denmark's 2nd largest city gets fully electrified. SJ has also publically expressed interest in running open access within Denmark, namely between Copenhagen and Aarhus as well, and have even been upgrading their X2000 trains to X2U's which are all certified to run in Denmark, along with basing their whole order of 250km/h Zefiro Express trains around Danish specifications! SJ actually tried once to start running open access in Denmark almost 14 years ago but failed. Partially because they could only go to Odense and only ran once per day. Copenhagen to Aarhus is the most competitive travel route in the country for both trains and buses so all eyes are on it once electrification is done. And of course we have GoVolta who also plan to launch a train from Amsterdam to Copenhagen once per day starting in 2025. Flywise, who owns GreenCityTrip and GoVolta already announced they're partnering with Train Charter Services, a Dutch company, and they recently bought a bunch of NS' old ICr coaches, so far at least 45 have been confirmed, with more likely on the way that are undisclosed as they get replaced by ICNG's. The ICr's are already certified to run in basically all of Europe already. Plus they also bought 14 old restaurant cars from Deutsche Bahn so it all fits together. And GoVolta did announce they'll operate like a low cost airline with base fares for the full length as low as 10 euros, but highly dynamic pricing and upcharges like baggage allowance and seat reservations. Though the Restaurant cars will serve to off set some of this and make it more attractive to passengers, especially given the slow and heavily padded schedules. I mean their Copenhagen route would take 11 hours compared to DSB's 9.5. I also know Flixtrain has proposed some routes a few times like Copenhagen to Uppsala but so far nothing has come out of any Flixtrain plans within Denmark.

yeah there needs to be a Schengen Train Tickets app, as soon as you have to switch trains on international services it get complicated.

Let's be realistic, we can't have everything, the real world is made of trade-offs. There are a lot of benefits in having an open market for long distance rail travel. All these private operators competing and offering different products gives the consumer a lot more choice and better prices. But this means that integrating tickets becomes way more complicated. The idea of tickets being in valid in services from other operators is quite challenging in this scenario.

It is very interesting that DSB wants to go to the Netherlands too. A Czech train to Denmark existed in the past with an EuroCity Praha to Aarhus.

An excellent report Thom. I was hoping that the Liége/Luik/Lüttich to Aix-la-Chapelle/Aken/Aachen RE18 service via Maastricht would have started in December 2023, however there has been a delay in upgrading the Arriva rolling stock to conform to Belgian safety standards. The current news is that the service will start in Q3/2024. Let's hope so! It's also encouraging to know that the rolling stock has been adapted to conform with the three different rail power systems in BE, NL and DE.

Very nice summary! You have probably left out the absolute shame that is the dream of a direct Groningen - Bremen train, and were right to do so. It is a shame. As you say, I cannot wait to see the ETR 1000 on the tracks here. At some point I think we will realise that the Rhijnspoorweg needs to be quadrupled and brought to 200 km/h (if not a fully seperate line, if I dare take those tabooed words in my mouth...) And of course, we will have to see how the Lelylijn can impact international services (combined with the farce of the wunderline)

Bedankt om dit allemaal op een rijtje te zetten. Een deel van de plannen had ik ergens gelezen, maar erg fijn om het op een rijtje te zien!

Geweldig filmpje! Ik heb er echt van genoten. Thank you for presenting so much information within this short film.

It's so exciting to see all these developments in passenger rail in Europe. I dream this could be the case in North America someday. I think there's such a huge untapped market and demand for high-speed rail, high-frequency conventional intercity and regional rail and Euro-style night trains with options for different group sizes and budgets ranging from compartments to couchettes and capules. People are looking for alternatives to flying and driving. If we really want to green our transportation system in North America, trains, along with having great coordinated local transit connections and bike and pedestrian friendly areas centered around stations are really the way to go from less or even no emissions to smarter development paterns. It's far past time to get moving on this and while we're lets get the overhead catenary system strung up instead of getting caught up on things like batteries and hydrogen. And how cool would it be to ride a Frecciorossa 1000 on the NEC or any other corridor for that matter.

We need more international trains in the Netherlands!

This is a really awesome video about really awesome trains that will be coming to the Netherlands in the future. I wish there were this many different trains to look forward to in the United States, I hope you and Lindsey are able to ride each and every train and give a report especially the Talgo!!!

Can’t emphasize your last point enough! There’s so much work to do to improve the ticketing experience for frequent users and tourists alike.

Watched all 16 minutes to the end, absolutely loved it!! You broke the information down in a really nice manner, and I hope you get many more subscribers!

It is interesting to hear about all the plans for new train services in the Netherlands and surrounding countries. As an American, I'm jealous of the great train service there! Hourly service? Most of our suburban lines in this country don't even have that. oh well! Great reporting, by the way. I hope at least some of those plans come true.

Very great video! I was really looking for a summary of all that is yet to come and this is exactly what I wanted. Personally, I'm very happy with the announcement of the train from and to Copenhagen.

Like it and if you want to use the major German stations these will be something like Mönchengladbach🇩🇪 for Venlo🇳🇱 followed by Duisburg Hbf🇩🇪 the starting point of Hollandstrecke Duisburg Oberhausen Emmerich am Rhein Zevenaar Arnhem Utrecht Amsterdam🇳🇱 Bad Bentheim🇩🇪 for Hanover and Amsterdam🇳🇱 Northern Netherlands to the German city of Hamburg🇩🇪 it's Bad Nieuwschans/Groningen🇳🇱 via Leer(Ostf) Oldenburg & Bremen Hbf although the actual terminal is the ferry at Puttgarden. Lastly Heerlen🇳🇱 for Aachen Hbf🇩🇪 which itself is on Schnellfahrstrecke Köln-Aachen which means a direct train Köln Hbf Maastricht needs PZB LZB ATB equipped. In the future HSR tracks can be built on some of them. 8:34 in Germany the locomotive for that one is called DB Baureihe 105 ICE3 Neo DB Baureihe 408. If you knew some of the German railroading terms Baureihe🇩🇪🇦🇹 = locomotive class🇬🇧. Speaking of the route to Eindhoven from Düsseldorf it goes even further to Hamm Hbf via the Rhein Ruhr Osten line Wuppertal Steinbeck Ennepetal Hagen Hbf commuter train VRR S8 Wuppertal Steinbeck Gevelsberg Hagen Hbf

The problem I see with most of these new competitors, at least here in Germany, they don’t really provide a benefit as a user. A big exception are the night services since DB stopped running them a couple years ago. 1) they only compete on the highest demand routes which are already at capacity. So they don’t actually provide additional service, they just replace timeslots. 2) while this is a solvable problem, it’s currently not possible to book a ticket for a combined journey of DB+Flixtrain or DB+Westbahn. So you need to buy separate tickets and if you miss your connection you’re not eligible for compensation and depending on your ticket can’t even take a later train (in case of Flixtrain that next train could be one or two days from now anyways). It’s basically as if you miss a plane because of a delayed train. Now, in theory the companies could reach an agreement like DB has with ÖBB, SBB, NS, etc. where they do sell combined tickets. But in practice DB has little incentive to do so, because they run competing services. So until some EU regulation forces them to change something about this, the private services are basically useless for anyone not traveling end-to-end on one operator. 3) if DB or NS lose money it’s a burden on the tax payer, since they are owned by the respective governments. If they have to lower prices on high demand routes and/or run less of the high-profit routes they’ll have even less money to serve the less profitable routes and either need to cut services or receive even larger subsidies while private companies just don’t run anything that’s not profitable.

Great stuff, as always, Thom!

I am especially excited about the new intercity line proposed between cities other than Amsterdam and Rotterdam. It’s about time the north-east and south of the country get good connections too

A train connection to Denmark seems really neat. I remember years ago when there was a City Nightline all the way to Moscow. I suppose it wasn't profitable enough to keep up.

Some of the famous people, in blue shirt? 😅 Nice catch man! Btw new subscribers here, loving your content so far, especially here when you show the map of the routes, so I can easily digest . keep it up!

This is very interesting great video as always i watch every video as soon as it comes out

Looks like there might be 6 of the 7 E300 shorter sets stored which someone could use.

Thanks for posting. Part of the plans you describe mainly are some minor improvements on the existing system. Another part just are dreams of (future) entrepreneurs. The latter I do not take seriously until they really achieve something. What I'm waiting for is improvement of the current system. Connections between trains are impossible because of delays, so you have to "build in" extra time. But unfortunately the ticketing systems (of which there are far to many, as you allready mentioned) can not cope with that, forcing you to by multiple tickets for one journey, leading to a higher price.

Great, enjoyed this video

great! like this information very much!

You’re absolutely right about ticketing integration. Good service is a prerequisite, but I fear it’ll be underutilised if actually planning and taking your trip are a confusing nightmare.

I really hope that the Friesenbrucke by Weener gets fixed soon and that the the line from Groningen to Leer will get electrified. As someone from the north of the Netherlands, I would much more appreciate a train going from Groningen to Hamburg or perhaps even Copenhagen, instead of trains going from Groningen to Paris or London.

Lots of exciting plans! I hope at least some of them get put into action, because it's clear that it's very much needed

Thank you so much for this excellent video Thom. Like you I'm equally excited and impatient for both NS and Eurostar to actually have some real competition and to have to work to earn the favor of the customers out there. Also, I would definitely be on one of the first Frecciarossa's to grace this fun little country 😀. Also yes, a Dutch language version would be really appreciated as well in order to distribute further.

Nice video!

Awesome video

Great to see so many developments being planned by operators. But the development of infrastructure should also be considered. Currently the network is very congested, in some regions actually over capacity. The line towards Groningen would not be able to handle more traffic during the day because of the Zwolle - Meppel bottleneck. Also, except for the high speed line, the lines weren’t built for heavy high speed trains. In combination with the current issues of ground instability this wouldn’t allow for more and heavier trains. It would also be fair to mention that many of the problems that occur with ns are caused by infrastructural issues that are out of their hands, any other operator will have to deal with the same problems. Given the current backlog of ProRail in maintenance and their staffing problem, realizing any of this will be a huge challenge.

Heuro has actually been in talks with train manufacturers like Alstom, Siemens and Hitachi. They said that Hitachi has proposed the Zefiro V300. I believe that the trains from the other manufacturers are: Alstom Avelia Stream and the Siemens Velaro classic MS.

Great job, Thom, encyclopedic in fact !

Very interested to see how Heuro turns out; Eurostar seems very entrenched right now. They'll have to handle EU/UK immigration as well, which creates some slight potential for difficulties and delays compared to a service running entirely in the Schengen. But perhaps even the threat of competition will make Eurostar get better.

In the late 1980s, I took a direct train from Eindhoven to Cologne (Köln). There used to be more international trains in the past, but my perception is that European operators are more focussed on their own short-term interest than that of the passengers.

Great video! Would love to see one of these for Denmark!

I enjoyed that video👍👍

Excellent summary. It's encouraging to see all these improvements, but we have a long way to go. Open access makes sense to me for long distance and international routes. Hopefully it will create healthy competition and innovation, but we also need much better infrastructure. Integrated ticketing as you said is one thing. I also think the Netherlands needs another 1 or 2 high speed lines going East from Amsterdam to either Hamburg or Cologne (or ideally both), to create a high speed corridor into the rest of Europe.

Nice video, but you only talked about companies and rolling stock. Also of note for international travel is the Lelylijn, a proposed 200km/h line going directly from Lelystad to Groningen. This would benefit some of the routes you mentioned and cut down travel time between Copenhagen and Amsterdam.

Okay, not what I expected. I knew about the merger of Eurostar and Thalys but the lack of service improvements from their side certainly was a surprise. Likewise, it's also interesting to see the new operators (HEURO especially) as well as the regional services which honestly aren't talked to so often about. I'm also hoping the added service incentivises Germany to upgrade some existing lines (e.g. Duisburg-Arnhem) and build new HSL (Hannover-Osnabrück-Enschede) for capacity reasons. They really are long overdue.

One other thing about Trenitalia, even tho it does not touch the Netherlands: Trenitalia is planning for early 2025 a high speed connection Milano - Berlin, but not with qbuzz, with the actual company

Hey Thom, that is a very exciting video. Living near station Eygelshoven Markt i am curious when the RE18 will be going from Luik to Aachen via Maastricht. A few years ago there were plans of a direct IC train from Eindhoven to Aachen. Do you know if that plan is still existing? Groeten, Ralf

A note about the Danish Talgo trains.. Its already been delayed though the first Talgo set has arrived it will not enter service untill 2025 ish

9:00 the czech railways will also use the brand new ComfortJet sets (improved, longer railjets). I'm really excited for this new connection.

And as a very long term project, one can hope for a Gent-Zelzate-Terneuzen service, and a connection of the Dutch network to the Begian network via Weert.

Hey, I wanted to make a correction on what you said at 4:31. The trains aren't high speed just because they use the HSL, but they actually go faster on this rail. The older train models that use the TRAXX locomotives reach speeds of up to 200km/h on the HSL. I think they wouldve considered using their ICNG trains if it weren't able to reach those speeds since they also use those on the same tracks.

Oh wow, I hadn't heard of this before. It's going to be interesting to see ProRail remove the bumper that was installed at Enschede station like 15 years ago so that the German railway network is physically connected again to the Dutch one in the passable sense. (Or did they remove it already? I haven't needed a train in a while...) I look forward to the variety, but if it comes at a cost of more chaos with ticketing, I'm not sure I want it. I avoid switching to regional operators as it is because of the fuss and of the higher fees that are associated with them when they are a viable alternative route, but if that can be avoided, that would be really cool.

So what happened to the direct service from Den Haag CS to Koln and beyond (every hour) and would you not prefer to take the beautiful Etoile Du Nord TEE train with the stainless steel chrome coaches than the Eurostar from Amsterdam CS to Paris Nord? Is there still a Roosendaal to Oostende every hour? I may be talking about an era before they even opened the station at Duivendrecht but they were seriously good connections/

Great video sir, if you want to talk about high ticket prices look at the uk rail system and not just the advance fares!

Out of curiosity is the bypassing of Haarlem, Leiden, Den Haag HS and Schiedam by the Intercity Direct a benefit to these stations as far as capacity is concerned for their Amsterdam or Rotterdam connections?

You forgot a part. Arriva should have it's bridge restored between Groningen and Leer. As far as I read they are making the bridge 2 tracks wide and want to extend it to Bremen...

The only way prices are kept low is by privatization. But it would make way more sense if the trains would be leased to the private companies by the government. This way you don’t get operators sending Stadler Flirt on 4H IC run’s.

I'm kind of scared what the future might bring for rail travel in Belgium, everyone and their aunt wants to run trains between either Amsterdam and Paris, or Amsterdam and London. All of which would travel on L25 in Belgium and would get priority compared to domestic services by law. There is a need for extra services between Antwerp and Brussels, yet now already we can see that some hourly trains had to be rerouted to make way for an international train, skipping Mechelen and Brussels Central and Midi. There is not the required capacity to run both these new trains and the current schedule, let alone the expanded schedule we'll need in the future...

Excellent mate, really well explained and some things i didnt even know were on the cards 😂 🚆❤

Excellent presentation.

Interesting how the rail privatization model has worked well on the continent, but has been an abject failure in the UK with more and more UK routes reverting to state ownership. Though to be fair the UK model was mostly a state enforced monopoly with little room for competition on the same route. Good luck ever getting competition on the channel tunnel routes, EuroStar has a lot of powerful backers who will go out of their way to protect the monopoly. Their monopoly is so powerful UK operator SouthEastern wasn't even allowed to cross the tunnel with their class 395s, which are compatible with french power and signaling (HS1 is basically an LGV track built in the UK) and would've been fine for runs across the channel to Calais.

You missed the reopening regional train from Groningen to Bremen, when they finaly open the Emsbridge again

I took the IC service between Amsterdam and Berlin a couple of years ago and it was dreadful, in large part thanks to Deutsche Bahn, would love to see this service get some open access competition

We shouldn't also forget that the technical challenges relating to different voltage systems in each country have been resolved. If we look at the planned Arriva train route between BE, NL and DE, the rolling stock will accommodate 3kV DC in BE, 1.5kV DC in NL and 15kV AC in DE. No mean feat.

The most important point you dropped in just at the end. A Unified booking and fare system. That is something that NS does so well at the present moment, and the influx of other operators, threatens that. And there is no way that Flixtrains passengers paying bargain basement prices are going to be allowed on other services if the flixtrain breaks down. These kind of issues need to be resolved first, to avoid chaos.

Great video. One question. Can you say anything about taking bikes with you? Esepecially Govolta and European Sleeper. A lot of people cycle Eurovelo routes. These are lomg distance routes, usually by a little sportive people (and not caring for kids anymore or not yet) with a good income (those bikes are really expensive). Many routes to Basel, Zurich, Italy ((Venice, Roma), Southern France, Northern Spain. And getting back is a real problem. You can take the Fietsbus, but trains are much nicer. And Paris-Amsterdam by train taking your bike with you is a real problem.

Interrail has proven that it IS possible to buy 1 ticket which can be used for any train company in Europe. They should totally leverage this

You didn't mention it but works just started to extend and revitalise the route Groningen - Bremen (Wiederline) which will connect the North of the Netherlands to Germany and access to the Scandinavian routes!

So basically, most of the stuff actually being done and not just announced is by Arriva, trenitalia and (now) Eurostar, which are all majority owned by other national railways

Maybe only sideways related, but I miss Maastriicht - Hasselt light rail? Should have been running by now, but is there still any movement there?

It would be so cool to see double decker and/or european trains in st pancras, ive always wanted to see a TGV in London.

The only other Dutch people I know are all techno artists.

11:43 did you know that Start is a 100% daughter of DB Regio, and probably only exist because of image and more tenders

Also, in December 2024 the Friesebrücke bridge on the Ems river in Germany will be reconstructed, so the Arriva line Groningen-Leer will be reactivated

Ik zou graag ook een Nederlandse versie bekijken! Ik merk dat ik wat minder Nederlands hoor sinds ik naar Canada ben verhuisd... Het zou echt hilarisch zijn als Lage Zwaluwe een internationaal station zou worden. Elke keer dat ik daar naartoe ben geweest waren er meer treinspotters dan echte passagiers.

Nice video. I'd like to hire you as a tour guide, show me what all you are talking about. We will hop on a train, then you can explain how we got there. (Wherever 'there' is)

I wished that Trenitalia would connect the North of Italy to the Netherlands to be honest. Switzerland has built very long tunnels so that it would be possible to run from Milan to Amsterdam at a decent speed. Maybe they are waiting for the tunnel to France? Or maybe other Swiss projects?

I just went along when I saw on first seconds Czech Republic talking guy about Netherlands

wait, what rolling stock will the last 2 companies use? would it be a stretch to think Arriva might inherit the 406s, because imagine how awesome that would be

I really hope we will see those ETR1000 trains!

Hey Thom... Do NS and other European companies have services comparable to Amtrak's state-supported trains? Does local transit get government funding?

Still waiting for the Aachen - Eindhoven/The Hague intercity... It's been 20+ years!

Soon there's going to be a direct train from Groningen to Bremen (Wunderlinie), because the broken bridge is going to be repaired 🥰

Yes

Uh oh, I see a major issue coming up with those plans in the German side of the line: Arnhem => Cologne. This route would be so congested that both the Netherlands and Germany should start about to rebuild and reopen the Nijmegen => Kleve section to have a robust train network along with Venlo => Mönchengladbach. Furthermore, I think we need more HSR lines in the country in order to reduce traffic on the roads.

Where there is competition, there is a high quality service and lower prices. If half of what's been said in this video comes true, bright times will come to the rail passengers to/from The Netherlands.

we need a tram system connecting more cities in the netherlands, like randstadrail

For those of you thinking all these would be train companies will make things better or cheaper, please refer to this video about ticket integration. Also, maybe it is interesting to take the example of the UK into consideration. Not without reason the privatisation of the British Railways is called the Great British Railway Disaster. Indeed, the central government doesn't spend too much taxpayers funds on railway, that is now done by local government. Services, connectivity, ticket integration has gone down, ticket prices have gone up, rolling stock prices are astronomical, while the taxpayer never had to pay so much. Those train companies just tell local governments to pay more if they want the same level of service. Not surprising that more and more franchises are taken into the public sphere and that the voices to go back to a unified railway company are growing.

I heard some rumors tcs might want to run to Switzerland with their recently acquired icr stock and their br101 locomotives, I have no idea if this is true but it could justify their purchase of atleast 75 coaches and some of the German locos

will all those long trains travel overnight? like the Copenhagen and Barcelona ones?

Hm, makes me wonder. Why isn't SNCF trying to establish a Paris to Amsterdam line? Is Eurostar owned by SNCF in a major part?

1:17 ok that made me laugh

I hope they finally get going with the wunderline between Groningen and Bremen, maybe this will also help Bremen turn back into more than just a regional hub

Aren't Talgo trains the ones with the despised single axle bogies? Or has Talgo decided to splurge on two axles on newer trainsets?

honestly, being belgian...i don't think it's realistic to see THAT much intl trains running through the country, without somehow completely bypassing the already packed Antwerp-Brussels line and the EXTREME bottleneck of the North South line across Brussels (although the latter can partially be avoided on existing lines but then trains won't stop in the city centre of Brussels). Or they should all use the Antwerp-Ghent-Lille line towards France, which also quite packed and the section towards France is rather slow..

Where did u find that map or did u make it yourself?

Dit is echt cool, Frecciarossa in Nederland MOET komen

Seeing this expansion in the Netherlands alone as an American makes me so depressed about Amtrak's expansion plans

trains are certainly awesome, i'm sorry that your tren maya video became so controversial, i hope it doesn't give a bad idea of the topic in our country in the long term