Train Travel - Book in advance?

During an upcoming stay we are travelling from Brussels to a few different cities. Is it necessary to book the high speed train in advance, or can we walk up to the station and buy tickets on-the-go?

Thanks!

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Yes, Thalys (www.thalys.com) and Eurostar (www.eurostar.com) have to be booked in advance. Indeed, for Eurostar you can only get the cheaper tickets (€40 each way) if you book something like 2 weeks in advance or spend a Saturday night in London - just like PEX tickets on airplanes. You can often still buy them after that, up to a couple of hours beforehand at Gare du Midi (given that you also have to check in at the Eurostar terminal 30 minutes before departure) but will pay a higher price, e.g. over 200 EUR midweek even in 2nd class.

Thalys tickets can usually be bought at Gare du Midi up to an hour or so before travel as there is no specific number of days you have to buy them in advance. However, the Sparpreis 25/50 conditions to German destinations (Aachen, Cologne, Frankfurt..) require purchase minimum 3/7 days respectively before the date of travel.

For InterCity trains, on the other hand, you don%26#39;t need (in fact can%26#39;t have, as far as I know) seat reservations and therefore don%26#39;t need to book in advance but can buy tickets on the day of travel. So when you look up timetables on http://www.b-rail.be/int/E/ look for train type IC rather than THA (Thalys), for example.

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Thanks for the comments. The cities we are travelling to are all within Belgium:

- Brugge

- Antwerp

- Leuven

- Ypres

For these cities, it sounds like you are saying that tickets can be bought an hour before departure?

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I did not say that at all, you asked about THE HIGH-SPEED TRAIN, and I replied with regard to Eurostar which goes to London, and Thalys which goes to Paris, Amsterdam and some German destinations. These are the only high-speed trains you can take in Belgium and they do not serve any Belgian destinations other than Brussels (and Antwerpen-Berchem as regards the Thalys to Amsterdam; but Thalys is not in fact a high-speed train on that route because the high-speed track is not yet in operation there).

For the Belgian cities and towns you mention, therefore - given that for Antwerp you will want to go to Antwerpen-Centraal - you cannot take a high-speed train at all. The fastest type available is InterCity; which is only faster than other local trains because it stops at major towns and cities, not all the smaller ones along the line. For these, and all other NON-high-speed trains, tickets are not sold for specific train departures: they are like bus and metro tickets, you buy them on the day of travel and take any departure on that date.

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qaminari - Perfect. Thanks again for the info. Looks like we don%26#39;t need to purchase tickets until the day we want to go. Regards.

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