Deutsche Bahn ICE 1110 and 1111 to connect Cologne and Ostend on weekends from 6 June to end of summer 2026
Deutsche Bahn loves Belgium, it seems. It will run ICE services from Cologne in Germany to Ostend on summer weekends, starting Saturday 6 June 2026. The journey will take 3h26. Domestic use of the train seems possible, but is eyewateringly expensive.
A friend send screenshots of ICE 1110 and ICE 1111. On Friday 27 February, I checked myself. And indeed there they are. The trainset would leave Cologne Main Station (Köln Hauptbahnhof) at 10:08 in the morning at arriving at Ostend (Oostende, Ostende) at 13:47 in the afternoon. The Belgian Coast is popular with Germans from the western Länder.
The return trip is scheduled to depart at 14:24 in the afternoon at arrive in North Rhine-Westphalia at 17:00 in Aachen (Aken, Aix-la-Chapelle) and 17:50 in Cologne. One forgets how far apart these two cities are.
Intermediate stops
Intermediate stops are: Bruges (Brugge), Ghent St Peter's (Gent-Sint-Pieters, Gand-Saint-Pierre), Brussels-South (Bruxelles-Midi, Brussel-Zuid), Brussels-North (Brussel-Noord, Bruxelles-Nord), Leuven (Louvain, Löwen), Liège-Guillemins (Luik, Lüttich), and Aachen.
Domestic use
If I can believe the app, you can book the ICE between Belgian stations. But it will cost you a whopping 50.20 euros for Ostend to Liège in second class. A NMBS / SNCB ticket on a Saturday (weekend pricing) without Train+ reduction for Ostend to Liège costs 14.90 euros in second class. Less than a third.
But maybe some announcements will be made and all that will change.
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