Arriva‘s Tri-Country Train (Drielandentrein, Train des trois pays), which has been running between Maastricht in the Netherlands and Aachen in Germany since 2019, will continue to Liège in Belgium from 9 June 2024. The Tri-Country train is also known as LIMAX, an acronym for Liège-Maastricht-Aachen-Express.

Dutch outgoing State Secretary for Transport and Water Management Vivianne Heijnen (CDA) reported the news to the Dutch House of Representatives or Tweede Kamer (Lower House). The train should have been running over the entire route since December 2023, but this was not possible due to technical problems.

In fact, the intention was that Liège, Maastricht and Aachen would have been connected by train since the end of 2018. This was not yet possible at the time, because the European Train Control System (ETCS) required by Belgium was not built into Arriva’s Stadler Flirts. All trains are now equipped with this security system, just like the Belgian Line 40 (Maastricht-Liège), on which the Three-Country Train will soon run.

An hour and a half

The Three-Country Train will probably take just under an hour and a half to cover the entire Liège-Aachen route. 

“If you want to travel directly between the Belgian and German cities, it is therefore better to take the Belgian omnibus service through the Ardennes , the S41 from Liège-Guillemins to Aachen Haubtbahnhof , or take an Deutsche Bahn ICE or Eurostar“, Treinreiziger.nl says.

OV chip card

For Dutch travelers, the LIMAX has an important advantage: the OV chip card, the public transport card will soon also apply to the Belgian part. This makes traveling between the Netherlands and Liège slightly easier and cheaper for season ticket holders.

Beware. This is only true for Arriva trains between Maastricht and Liège. On the S32 omnibus, run by NMBS / SNCB, between Roosendaal and Antwerp (and Puurs), the OV-chipkaart is not accepted. You need a valid paper ticket bought at the NS or NMBS / SNCB ticket vending machines; or a valid ticked bought online or on the apps of NS Internationaal or NMBS / SNCB Internationa(a)l. Tapping in and out with your credit card or phone is also not possible. Believe it or not, the Netherlands and Belgium operate in different ways.

Byebye S43

Slow train S43 will stop running between Maastricht and Liège due to the arrival of Arriva’s Three-Country Train. Belgian rail personnel remain responsible for the Belgian part of the route.

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