The Thalys

Introduced	1996
Design Speed	200mph (320km/h)
Commercial Speed	186mph (300km/h)
Best Average Speed	148mph (237km/h)

Introduction

The Thalys is Europe's second truly international very high speed train after the Eurostar, running between Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Koln. It is essentially a modified French TGV. As expected, being a TGV, it has a very high top commercial speed of 186mph or (300km/h). The problem with international trains is that different countries have different standards, such as electricity supply, tunnel size, distance between parrelelle track, hieght of cantanary above the railway... and so on. This is why for international services international trains are needed which work under the standards of all countries involved. Indeed this service has to cope with four different power supplies 25kV AC @ 50Hz for France, 15kV AC @ 16.7Hz for Germany, 3kV DC for Belgium and 1.5kV DC for Holland.

The Two Types of Train

There are two Thalys trains, one called Thalys PBA (Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam) and the other called Thalys PBKA (Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam & Koln). The Thalys PBA trains are essentially TGV Reseau trains with an extra transformer for running in Holland. The Thalys PBKA are more modern, 3rd generation TGVs using power cars similar to those used in the TGV duplex.

Eric Boudaille - Eric.et.Marie@hol.fr

Speeds

Paris to Brussels

There is dedicated high speed rail all the way from Paris to Brussels, which is used by Eurostars and TGV Reseaus as well as the Thalys. The Journey time between Paris and Brussels is a remarkable 1hour 25 minutes since the Belgium high speed line opened in January 1998. The distance between Paris and Brussels is 336km (210miles) giving rise to an average speed of 237km/h (148mph).

Beyond Brussels

Going east of Brussels there is no further high speed line and the Thalys is forced to run on normal track, meaning journey times are just the same for normal trains. Brussels to Köln takes 2hours 32 minutes, Brussels to Amsterdam takes 2hours 40 minutes. There are plans for a high speed rail link from