The 'three-country train' linking Liège, Maastricht and Aachen has been postponed once again due to a delay in the resumption of traffic on the Belgium-Netherlands leg, and will now come on stream on 30 June, transport company Arriva says.
The train would normally have begun operating from 9 June in the border region between Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.
However, train traffic between Wezet in Liège and Maastricht in the Netherlands, which was suspended due to damage caused by the flooding of an adjacent waterway, will not resume until 16 June, railway network operator Infrabel reported on Saturday. The start-up date for the three-country connection has thus been postponed to 30 June.
Traffic between Wezet and Maastricht was supposed to have resumed on 27 May. However, the date was first moved to 3 June after it became evident that the flood-induced damage to the rail network was greater than thought, both in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Although the repairs have been completed, Infrabel's technical teams decided to suspend traffic longer, in order to complete “several larger works” by mid-June. The aim is to better protect that section of the network so that damage does not recur if the level of the adjacent river rises again in the future.
The Netherlands has been informed of the postponement, Infrabel said.
Arriva's 'three-country train' has long been announced. Since early 2019, the train has already been running on the Maastricht-Aachen section of the connection. Belgium could not be served at the time because the Belgian authorities imposed additional conditions.
All bottlenecks have since been resolved and in March it was announced that the train would also run in Belgium from June, with stops in Liège-Guillemins, Bressoux and Wezet.
