Move

Leo Express wants to operate trains from Ostend, Belgium to Bratislava, Slovakia from 2024 or 2025

Posted by Timothy on

Recently, we read quite a few big announcements regarding trans-continental train travel in Europe. We love those, but we’re also apprehensive. Let’s take a look. 

Leo Express, an open-access train operator from Czechia, has lodged an request with the Belgian Regulatory Body for Railway Transport and Brussels Airport Operations to operate trains from Ostend at the coast of Belgium all the way to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. The journey would include over fifty stops in Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia and would talk about 19 (!) hours, Belga reports. 

These plans call for a daily connection in both directions, which would start at the end of 2024 or in the spring of 2025.

The train would depart in Belgium from the coast in Ostend, with stops in Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, Leuven and Liège. Via more than twenty stations in Germany, such as Aachen, Cologne, Dortmund, Hanover (Hannover with two Ns in German), Leipzig and Dresden, it would then go to Czechia, where more than ten stops are planned, including the capital Prague. In Slovakia the train would stop in Kúty and Malacky to end in Bratislava.

It is a day train. In both directions the train would leave just after six in the morning, arriving at its final destination after one o’clock at night. The distance between Ostend and Bratislava as the crow flies is more than 1,000 kilometers.

Bratislava’s main station.

Formal request

The Body for Railway Transport and Brussels Airport Operations published the formal request. It includes a proposed timetable and all stops. 

These are:

  • Bratislava; 
  • Malacky; ,
  • Kúty; 
  • Břeclav; 
  • Hodonín; 
  • Staré Město u UH; 
  • Otrokovice; 
  • Hulín; 
  • Přerov; 
  • Olomouc hl.n.; 
  • Zábřeh na Moravě; 
  • Pardubice hl.n.; 
  • Kolín; 
  • Praha-Libeň; 
  • Praha-Holešovice; 
  • Ústí n.L.hl.n.; 
  • Děčín hl.n.; 
  • Bad Schandau; 
  • Dresden Hbf; 
  • Dresden Neustadt; 
  • Riesa; 
  • Leipzig Hbf (tief); 
  • Leipzig/Halle Flughafen; 
  • Halle (Saale) Hbf; 
  • Köthen; 
  • Magdeburg Hbf; 
  • Braunschweig Hbf; 
  • Hannover Hbf; 
  • Minden (Westf); 
  • Herford; 
  • Bielefeld Hbf; 
  • Gütersloh Hbf; 
  • Hamm (Westf) Hbf; 
  • Dortmund Hbf; 
  • Bochum Hbf; 
  • Essen Hbf, 
  • Duisburg Hbf, 
  • Düsseldorf Hbf, 
  • Köln Hbf; 
  • Düren; 
  • Aachen Hbf; 
  • Liège-Guillemins; 
  • Leuven; 
  • Bruxelles-Nord; 
  • Bruxelles-Central; 
  • Bruxelles Midi; 
  • Gent-Sint-Pieters; 
  • Brugge; 
  • Oostende.

In a published email, Leo Express says it wants to start on 15 December 2024. Next year. But it admits Spring 2025 is more realistic.

Proposed timetable.

Not the first 

Leo Express is not the first train operator to pick Ostend as a terminus. The aborted joined venture of RegioJet, incidentally also from Czechia, and European Sleeper also chose Ostend. 

Rolling stock

We repeat ourselves. We’re sceptical. Which rolling stock, homologated for four countries, will be used? Okay, daytime rolling stock is more easily available. But still.

Leo Express is counting on Stadler Flirt units for lines to Poland, and a classic set of locomotives and passenger cars for other destinations. However, it is not clear what it should be. The carrier is also counting on entering the route Prague – Brno, where it wants to drive both via Pardubice and the slower route via Havlíčkův Brod.

“In the long term, we plan to expand our services. In cooperation with our strategic partner Renfe, we are not only looking for new markets, but we also want to expand services in existing ones. This year alone, we plan to invest 100 million crowns from capital reserves in development, ” said Leo Express spokesman Emil Sedlařík is quoted on Zdopravy.

“From Bratislava via Břeclav and Olomouc to Prague, then via Dresden, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Hanover, Dortmund, Cologne, Aachen, Brussels, Bruges and Ghent to the North Sea. The train is scheduled to leave Bratislava at 6:20 AM and will arrive in Ostend at 1:37 AM. He will go back at 6:15, he will be in Bratislava at 1:13.

Slovak coat of arms.

A day train?

Also: a day train? We don’t see ourselves spending 19 hours on a day train. It must be very comfortable, even luxurious, to do so. I think our record time is the TrainLink XPT between Melbourne and Sydney in Australia in 2020. That was some ten hours. 

Leo Express will have to provide awesome seats, well-stock restaurant cars, charging points, working air conditioning… Flirts aren’t maid for such a long journey.

Of course, the train can be popular for shorter journeys. For instance to travel ‘only’ from Belgium to Germany. Maybe that is what is going to happen.

But we foresee some big logistical and operational challenges. Let’s wait and see, as usual. 

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