London to Hasselt, quickly

[NJOK]

Hi,

I'm traveling to Hasselt in Belgium next month and I want to do it in the shortest reasonable time. Taking into account time spent journeying to and from the airport and waiting after check-in and for baggage reclaim, will it be quicker for me to fly to Brussels and take the train or get the Eurostar to Brussels and change trains there?

[SteveD]

Go here:

http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/

and put in Bruxelles Midi (or Bruxelles Eurostar) to Hasselt to see what the possibilities are around the time you will arrive.  Then try Bruxelles Nat Airport to Hasselt and see what it comes up with.

I live in Belgium and, before I retired, I used to travel a lot.  Often, baggage delivery at Zaventem is rather slow!

 

Note that there are three main stations in Brussels (all on the same line).  From south to north they are:: Bruxelles Midi/Brussel Zuid; Bruxelles Centrale/Brussel Centraal: Bruxelles Nord/Brussel Noord.  The Airport Express train runs from Bruxelles Midi and stops at the other two stations (the airport is to the north east of the city).  In other words, if you take the train from the airport to Hasselt, you will probably have to change at Bruxelles Nord.

 

You don't say where you will be travelling from (I assume London).

[Buenchico]

It could depend upon exactly where in London you're starting from but it's almost certainly quicker to use Eurostar.

SteveD has given you a valid link for the Belgian rail service but what you really need is the German rail service, Die Bahn!

No, I haven't got a very poor sense of geography - it's just that Die Bahn's website covers the whole of Europe. If you want to know how to get from Rome to Stockholm or from Scunthorpe to Moscow, Die Bahn can do it all! (Incidentally, it's just as good at working out Haywards Heath to York. I run a rail station and would never use National Rail Enquiries; Die Bahn is better!)

So go to http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en , enter the dates and times you require and you'll have your entire journey plan in seconds. (I've already checked it out - Journey times from Waterloo to Hasselt are between 4 and 5 hours. Its unlikely that you'll get there quicker by air but I suppose that it might be possible if you live next door to London City Airport so I can't give any guarantees!).

(If you've not travelled on Eurostar before, minimum check in time is 30 minutes - or 10 minutes for full-fare 1st Clss travel. On arrival there are no delays at all. Your luggage stays with you - so there's no queuing for baggage reclaim - and there are no passport or customs controls to go through).

Hoping this helps,

Chris

[SteveD]

There are no BA or SN Brussels flights from London City to Brussels any more. SN fly to Brussels from Gatwick and, in code-share with BA, from Heathrow.

However, VLM fly from London City to Brussels and to Antwerp.  There are direct trains from Antwerpen Centraal to Hasselt.  Worth a look:

http://www.flyvlm.com/emc.asp?pageId=210

[NJOK]

Steve, Chris - thanks!