The new Dutch international train company, GoVolta, has started operating direct daytime trains from Amsterdam to Berlin and Hamburg. The trains run three times a week.
A return ticket from Amsterdam to Berlin costs an average of €30, and the journey is made using 13 trains from the Belgian railway company NMBS/SNCB, which are around 40 years old and were taken out of service at the end of last year.
Belgian travellers will also benefit from GoVolta’s services, as the company plans to launch a daily service between Amsterdam and Paris from December onward. In Belgium, this service will stop at Ghent, among other places – expect a journey time of at least three hours.
Support from Keolis
It took a lot of effort, but GoVolta founders Hessel Winkelman and Maarten Bastian finally succeeded in getting their project to make international train travel cheaper and easier off the ground.
Initial financing was significantly delayed when Rabobank withdrew. Still, GoVolta ultimately secured Dutch train and travel operator Keolis, a subsidiary of the French railway company SNCF, and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec as a new partner.
This secured the financing for the equipment and enabled the purchase of the necessary second-hand trains: 13 I10 trains from the Belgian railway company NMBS/SNCB. Additional trains may be purchased this year to allow further growth.
However, these trains were first refurbished before they were put into service, with maintenance carried out by Brouwer Technology, a Dutch rolling stock company.
Longer travel time, but at a lower cost
The first journey between Amsterdam and Berlin was fully booked, with over 600 passengers. GoVolta will now run services three times a week between the Dutch and German capitals, and the same frequency between Amsterdam and Hamburg. The cheapest tickets are available from €10, and tickets cost no more than €35 in any case.
These prices are considerably more attractive than those offered by competitors Deutsche Bahn and NS, where the cheapest ticket to Berlin costs €38. In addition, GoVolta guarantees that its second-class tickets will always be more affordable than competitors’.
However, GoVolta customers will have a longer journey. Because the locomotive can travel at a maximum speed of 160 km/h, the trip to Berlin takes seven hours rather than six.
In addition to a locomotive, the train consists of seven second-class carriages (Economy Class), one first-class carriage (Comfort Class), and an on-board restaurant. There are 820 seats. In the summer, each train can carry more than 1,000 passengers, making operations much more efficient and allowing fares to be reduced even further.
The train to Berlin, which made its maiden voyage yesterday, stops in Amersfoort, Deventer, Hengelo, Bad Bentheim, Osnabrück, and Hanover. The train to Hamburg stops in Amersfoort, Deventer, Hengelo, Bad Bentheim, and Bremen.
The intention is to scale up both routes to a daily connection from the summer. In addition to individual train tickets, travelers can also book complete city trips (train + hotel) in a single reservation.
GoVolta is also introducing an option to book the seat opposite for extra space and a guaranteed seat facing the direction of travel. This service is offered under the name XL Duo Seat.
More new destinations
For GoVolta founders Winkelman and Bastian, this is not their first train adventure. They previously operated night trains under the name GreenCityTrip, which has since been acquired by the night train company European Sleeper.
GoVolta also hopes to offer a connection to Paris by December, with 30 additional revamped NMBS/SNCB trains. A trip from Amsterdam would then take 7 hours, 3,5 hours longer than with Eurostar.
“We specifically chose not to go via Brussels, as there are already plenty of trains between Brussels and Paris, and Brussels and Amsterdam,” says co-founder Hessel Winkelman. And Ghent isn’t yet connected by train to Paris and Amsterdam.” In addition, the GoVolta trains in Belgium will also stop in Antwerp.
It’s not yet entirely certain whether the connection will actually go ahead, but Winkelman is optimistic. “We’ve received an initial draft timetable, and it looks promising. We expect it to work out.”
A return ticket from Amsterdam to Paris would cost an average of €50. The price fighter also plans to expand to other destinations in the future, including Frankfurt, Basel, Munich, Copenhagen, and Bruges.
