Temporary slowdown for high speed trains in Belgium

High speed trains between Brussels, the UK and France have been slower since mid-August owing to maintenance work.

State-owned Infrabel, which builds, operates and maintains Belgium’s rail infrastructure said that the Eurostar and France’s TGV services would be using standard tracks until August 29.

This has added around 30 minutes to the Brussels-London and Brussels-Paris journeys.

The high-speed line between Brussels and the French border opened in 1997 and Infrabel, which announced a €310 million investment in the 74-kilometre high speed network earlier this year, will overhaul infrastructure over the next 10 years. Most of the work will be done at night and entail closing the line for two weeks each summer.

The high speed renovations will also affect Brussels-Hainaut and Brussels-Mons domestic services while they share their tracks with the high speed trains.