German passenger trains operator Deutsche Bahn intends to launch a high-speed train service linking Antwerp, Brussels Airport – Zaventem, and Leuven (Louvain) with Aachen (Aken, Aix-la-Chapelle) and Cologne. An application has been submitted to Belgium’s Federal Agency for Transport Regulation.

The Regulatory Body for Railway Transport and for Brussels Airport Operations received the application recently and published the news on Friday 13 June 2025. The news broke today. 

“The new connection is scheduled to run twice daily in both directions from September 2026, according to the application”, Belga writes. On the pdf, we read December 2026. December makes sense because it’s the ‘Railway New Year’ for timetables in Europe. But this document does say 7 September 2026.

The high-speed ICE trains will stop at Brussels Airport in Zaventem, something the airport operator has long been asking for. The service will also call at Leuven and Liège (Luik, Lüttich). 

Trains towards Germany would depart from Antwerp -Central at around 11.00 and 19.00, arriving in Cologne around 2.5 hours later. Departures from Germany would leave at around 6.30 and 14.30. 

Between Antwerp and Leuven, trains will run on the regular track, before running on high-speed tracks from Leuven to Germany. 

Eight ICE trains already run daily in both directions between Germany and Belgium. These also stop in Liège but then travel to Brussels-North and Brussels-Midi. 

Eurostar high-speed trains also run between Brussels and Cologne.

The document

The document can be found online. The application document is very basic and offers a tentative schedule. It also points to December 2026 as starting point. 

Our take on this news

This news sounds so much more realistic than Eurostar linking the Netherlands to Switzerland via Antwerp in Belgium. 

“These new connections will run at approximately the same departure time as the Eurostar Brussels to Cologne, which will probably mean switching to Antwerp as the North-South Junction in Brussels is already fully congested”, Danny notes. 

“The current Frankfurt to Brussels ICE also stops at Brussels-North for one reason: to give passengers a decent connection to trains to Antwerp”, Danny continues. 

“So my theory is that they couldn’t secure a track slot in Brussels while they only want to operate ICEs to Belgium, so now they are trying to divert to Antwerp instead, as there are many passengers travelling to and from Germany there – also due to the numerous German companies in the Port of Antwerp-Bruges. And, of course, they can still enable smooth transfers to the rest of the network in Leuven and at the airport, possibly even faster for the European Quarter than via the North-South Junction”, Danny concludes. 

Antwerp popular with German tourists

According to the 2024 Antwerp tourism statistics, 9% of the one-day tourists calendar from Germany. German visitors also account for 12.4% of the residential tourists, i.e. visitors staying overnight. 

So there is a lot of potential. 

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