Europe continues to strengthen its cross-border rail services. A new railway line between Dutch Railways (NS), Arriva and SNCB is due to start operating in December. on a project linking the three main cities of the Meuse-Rhine Euregio, LiègeMaastricht and Aachen. The regional governments of the Euregio initialled a memorandum of understanding to this effect at the end of last week.
La region made up of the Dutch and Belgian Provinces of Limburg, the Province of Liège and the Eifel region of Belgium. North Rhine-Westphalia has a population of almost 4 million inhabitants. This cross-border train project would strengthen the region's economic cohesion with an hourly service between the three towns.
A "gap" with Germany
The regional line, which existed in the past, is currently suspended due to modernisation work on the network in North Rhine-Westphalia. On the German side, the Aachen station is being integrated into the ETCS (European Train Control System) signalling system. Only regional trains currently run between Liège and Maastricht. As for the Liège-Aachen line, it is now served only by ICEs (German high-speed trains) and Thalys trains.
The future regional service will offer one train per hour between the three cities.. It would take less than an hour to travel from one to the other. Another advantage: the opening of the line will also make it possible to connect Maastricht to the high-speed rail network. With or without connections to Aix or Liège.
In the future, the line could be extended to the fourth largest city in the Euregio, Hasseltcapital of the Belgian province of Limburg.
