Part One- the outward journey.

Grahame is not the only forum member to be sampling rail travel across the Channel in recent days. My wife and I spent a few days in Germany, based in Aachen, over the weekend, celebrating her birthday by visiting two cathedrals covered in a recent WEA course she has attended (Aachen and Trier) and the surrounding general area.
We’ve used Eurostar as our preferred way of getting to much of France and the Benelux countries for some years, so decided to add Germany to the list of counties visited by this means. Aachen is only just in Germany, both the Netherlands and Belgium being almost within walking distance of the city. I booked tickets through SNCB, the Belgian national railway company, travelling via Brussels each way. I hope this account might be of interest and assistance to forum members who might be contemplating visiting this part of the world.

As it happens, our outwards journey was the first with any problems after 10 clear on-time journeys on Eurostar. Having checked in, and arrived in the crowded departures area at St Pancras, the displays changed to show that our 13-00 departure was now expected to depart at 14-30. We were booked on an onwards DB ICE due to depart 20 minutes after our due arrival time. To their credit, Eurostar immediately announced that anyone with onward journeys from Lille or Brussels should attend their information desk to get help with alternative arrangements. In our case, we were given a handwritten note confirming that the Eurostar train was delayed by up to two hours franked with an official rubber stamp, and told to present it in Brussels and we would likely be issued a replacement ticket on a later train at no cost. We might not even need this – the certificate itself may work. They could not help with times, but recommended checking on-line, and it was easy to confirm that there was a DB ICE every two hours.

On the train, a member of crew went through the train asked who was affected by missing booked connections, and we were advised to go to the ticket and information at Brussels Midi. This we did, and a very helpful person with excellent English glanced at our certificate, and told us that we needed nothing more, and should just get on the next (18-25) ICE and show the certificate on any ticket inspection.

This was my first mainline German train trip, albeit mostly across Belgium, and we were treated to one of their mark 3 ICE high-speed trains. Very satisfactory, clean and comfortable it was too. The ticket inspector simply asked if we were one of the passengers affected by the Eurostar delay, and accepted our “yes” without actually inspecting either our ticket or certificate! Despite all the negative publicity about DB in recent times, it ran to time (as did GWR from Goring to Paddington on the way to London).

Tip for anyone thinking of travelling to Aachen from St Pancras – the Eurostar fare on the ex-Thalys service using old 1990s TGV-type trains is £81, on the DB ICE it is £31-36, a little less for us as we were “seniors”. Both take the same high-speed track, but the DB service takes all of between 3 and 6 minutes longer, and both run about once every two hours.

Aachen station looks like a post-war reconstruction, a pleasant enough building, and sits on an attractive square south of the old city centre. Unfortunately, it is also a magnet for all the alcoholics and down-and-outs of the city, and this is reflected also in a conspicuous police and security presence. The city itself has an attractive centre around the cathedral, old townhall and an interesting museum at the Charlemagne Centre, this being Charlemagne city. It gives the history of the city from pre-Roman times to the post-war period. The city, as a transport hub and an early target in the “liberation” of Germany in 1944 was very heavily bombed. Much of the rest of the city is typical post-war reconstruction ex-West Germany, albeit a little shabbier than many other similar cities. It is not so good as a base if you want to see Trier as well and use public transport. We “cheated” and hired a car, which also gave us an opportunity to see some of the attractive hilly country of the Ardennes, Haute Fagnes and Eifel National Parks and Moselle valley around the area where Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg meet. Aachen does however have good rail and bus links with Cologne, Maastricht, Eupen and Liege if you fancy an international sightseeing break.

Next time-the way home....
 

 
There's a really good model railway shop in the centre of Aachen too - close to the Town Hall.

 
Part 2 – the Return Journey

SNCB booked quite a different experience for our return journey to Brussels. As it happens, this was just as well. Checking the local equivalent of Journey Check on my phone to see if there were any problems, most of the longer distance DB trains to- and from Cologne, Frankfurt had been severely delayed or cancelled due to a problem with overhead power lines somewhere east of Aachen.

Our return journey involved a change of trains at Welkenraedt. Where is that? It’s about 10 miles south-west of Aachen, the second station on the old slow line inside Belgium, as opposed to the new high-speed line on which we travelled from Liege on the way out. It is where it is joined by another line coming in from Eupen, and is one of those places with a quite a large station with a lots of tracks with not much town around it.

Our first train was an SNCB local stopping train from Aachen to Liege Guillemans. It was formed of a push-pull 4 car set and a locomotive. From what I could tell, this was not a permanently-formed set, as it seemed a mix of air-conditioned and non-airconditioned stock, looking like cascaded main-line stock.

After this short and slow start, we got off at Welkenreadt and found our way to the platform where we were due to wait 25 minutes to join a train from Eupen to Ostend. Somewhat to our alarm, there was already a train with Ostend on its destination signs standing there, but clearly just about to depart. Checking the Belgian Journey Check (there being no live station departure signs on the platforms), it appeared that it was the preceding service departing 35 minutes late. Fortunately, our allotted train arrived on time, and kept to time all the way to Brussels Midi.

It was formed of a locomotive and a long rake of mixed coaches, including a couple of double-deckers. The journey was one of two parts, the first through hilly southern Belgium, a country of livestock, French-speakers, hedgerows and small towns that clearly were thriving industrial towns many years ago.  The old line follows the valley of the Vesdre, a tributary of the Meuse (Maas if you are Flemish) that joins the Rhine at Nijmegen. A fellow passenger informed us that the area had been badly affected by floods three years ago (although the conductor joined in the conversation, correcting her – it was four years ago). Our large, but lightly laden train made its way without undue hurry to Liege, where we crossed the Meuse, transferred to the high-speed line along the E40 motorway we had taken on the way out, and became an express train running through flat, open arable land to the capital, and the on-train signs and announcements switched to Flemish. Finally, after the longest run between Liege and Leuven, we became a busy commuter train for Brussels North, Central and Midi.

The remaining parts of our journey, Eurostar to St Pancras, then onward to Goring went largely like clockwork, save for one minor change on the Circle Line between St Pancras and Paddington, where we had the heritage experience of following the old route directly to Gloucester Road.   

The price for our varied and interesting 90-mile journey from Aachen to Brussels – with our senior discount, was just 11-80 euros, or about £10 each. Anyone wanting to see a cross-section of a country that I guess is overlooked by most, except possibly the honey-pots of Ghent and Bruges, should consider the entire trip from Ostend to Eupen, on which trains run hourly between about 5 am and 11 pm. It is apparently Belgium’s longest internal train service, and takes about 3 hours end-to-end. 

Other impressions of rail travel in Belgium? As on previous journeys, there seems on awful lot of passenger rolling-stock, some seemingly of considerable age, and often covered in graffiti, lying unused around most of the larger stations. The condition of the stations is variable, but many look neglected with a healthy growth of weeds between the block pavers they favour for platforms. This is particularly true of the suburban stations on the outskirts of Brussels, and indeed much of the city had a somewhat down at heel look reminiscent of some of the satellite towns and suburbs of Birmingham, notwithstanding the strikingly different Flemish architecture. The platform level parts of Brussels Midi are not particular smart either. By contrast, both Leuven and Liege Guillemans have striking new modern station buildings. It was also notable during our journey down the Vesdre valley that there was a lack of any train information on the platforms of the stations we stopped at, and I had to find our platform at Welkenreadt, an interchange station, by referring to my smartphone. On the positive side, it is good to enjoy the extra space of continental size carriages, and only four seats across too!


 

 

Yes - I could not resist a look inside. According to the staff, it's the largest in Europe. The prices look pretty steep though, unlike the local train fares.

 

I wonder if, when the train approaches the Belgian town of Eupen, the announcements all change to German.