After several delays, Eurostar‘s direct train service from London St Pancras to Amsterdam Centraal is set to resume early next year.
A spokesperson for the high-speed train operator confirmed the relaunch will start on 10 February, 2025, a month later than planned.
The direct service between the two capital cities was temporarily halted in June, while Amsterdam Centraal station undergoes extensive renovations. The work has made it impossible to carry out border control for London-bound passengers .
Currently, travellers using Eurostar services from Amsterdam to London must disembark in Brussels to complete passport control and security checks, before joining a connecting service and continuing their journey to London. The indirect service is more than one hour longer than the typical three hour and 41-minute direct route.
That’s set to come to an end in February – in time for many half-term holidays – despite the fact that the construction work at the Dutch capital’s international terminal will not have been fully completed.
Capacity will also be increased on the Amsterdam services, up from 275 to 440 seats, with the number of seats expected to rise further later in 2025. Post-Brexit border checks, which typically add 15 seconds per passenger, forced the operator to cut capacity on cross-Channel trains in 2022.
The small platform-side Eurostar departure lounge at Amsterdam Centraal is also being expanded, and will accommodate 700 passengers compared to the previous 250.
“Our direct trains from Amsterdam and Rotterdam to London will be back in service from the beginning of 2025,” Eurostar said in a status update on its website.
“We’ll be reopening with a bigger and better London departures area at Amsterdam Centraal, to make your travel experience even smoother.”
Brexit, track and border delays
The update comes at an important milestone for Eurostar, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary later this month.
In September, the company threatened to suspend all services to the Netherlands in 2025. Writing in Dutch daily newspaper Financieele Dagblad at the time, Eurostar’s chief executive Gwendoline Cazenave said it was considering scrapping the service entirely as a result of increasing reliability problems, capacity restrictions, and “frustrating” delays.
Last year, speed restrictions were placed on the high-speed line between Amsterdam and the Belgian border after cracks were found in viaducts, which has seen trains limited to 80kph (49.7mph) – down from a top speed of 300kph (186mph) – on some sections of track.
Cazenave explained this has resulted in Eurostar services being frequently delayed and that the number of trains permitted to operate on the high-speed line has also been reduced from five to four per hour in both directions.
Despite these issues, Eurostar is committed to a target of carrying 30 million passengers by 2030, investing in 50 new trains which are set to support growth on its network across the UK, France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.
The company has faced challenges related to Brexit and the pandemic, and been forced to cut back its UK services in recent years.
Eurostar’s trains no longer stop at Ebbsfleet and Ashford in Kent, or at Calais and Marne La Vallée – for Disneyland Paris – in France.
The operator has also invested around €10m in preparation for the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES), which was due to launch on 10 November, but has been delayed again.
A handful of rival operators – including Virgin, Deutsche Bahn and Evolyn – has expressed interest in launching services on the cross-Channel High Speed 1 line, but as yet there have been no developments and it’s unlikely any new service would launch much before the end of the decade.
“Eurostar is fully committed to a bright future in the Netherlands,” Cazenave said in a statement on Friday. “We look forward to the opening of the new Amsterdam terminal, which is going to offer more space and an exceptional experience for customers.”
The relaunch of the Amsterdam service is also bound to please those who are making a concerted effort to travel more sustainably.
“We are pleased to see the return of a direct train connection between Amsterdam and London. This has been a joint effort over the past years of all parties involved,” Chris Jansen, Dutch minister for the environment and public transport, said.
“This will help international travellers choose the train as a means of transportation between these two cities.”