The Dutch railway company GoVolta will launch a daily train service between Amsterdam and Paris on December 14, with stops at Antwerp Central and Ghent-Sint-Pieters. For Ghent, this marks the return of a direct train connection to Paris since the discontinuation of the Thalys service in 2015.
GoVolta promises fares starting at €10 for train trips to or from Belgium.
Earlier this year, GoVolta – which positions itself as a low-cost carrier in the international rail market – already began offering train services from Amsterdam to Berlin and Hamburg.
“Ghent is a very attractive destination”
The reason the trains in Belgium stop in Antwerp and Ghent but not in Brussels is that, according to GoVolta, the capital already has sufficient connections to Amsterdam and Paris. “Ghent, a medieval city with 260,000 residents and a highly attractive destination, had no direct international train connections from the Netherlands or from Paris,” the rail company states.
Antwerp already has connections to Amsterdam and Paris, including Eurostar high-speed trains and Eurocity Direct.
Tickets to Amsterdam and Paris starting at €19
The journey between Amsterdam and Paris will take just over 7 hours. Along the way, there will be stops in Haarlem, The Hague, Rotterdam, Lage Zwaluwe, and Roosendaal; then in Antwerp Central and Ghent-Sint-Pieters; and in Arras and Longueau (Amiens).
Tickets are available starting at € 19 – nearly half the €35 starting price for Eurostar. The average round-trip fare is estimated at around €50.
According to GoVolta, which operates with former I10 railcars from the Belgian railway company NMBS/SNCB, travel times from Antwerp or Ghent to Amsterdam and Paris are expected to be 3 to 4 hours.
The service will initially run once a day in each direction, arriving in Paris around 3 p.m. and in Amsterdam around 11:30 p.m. GoVolta hopes to add a second daily service in 2028. In the future, it also hopes to introduce new services to Basel and Munich.
