Direct Boat Trains Calais to Brussels?

[STEVIEBOY1]

Did there used to be direct trains Calais to Brussels?. Years ago, in the early to mid 1970s my aunt & uncle visited my cousin who was living at the time in Brussels travelling by trains and boat.

I assumed that they would have gone via the longer Dover/Ostend Sealink crossing, but it seems they went Dover or Folkestone to Calais and got a direct through train from there to Brussles Midi. It was a day time service they went one, not the Night Ferry.

 

[Seehof]

I am pretty certain there weren’t any. No need for obvious reasons!

 

[30907]

There were only two regular services a day from Calais Mme to Lille and onward across northern France, and AFAIK neither carried any portion for Belgium or beyond. As Seehof implies, it would have been an odd route to use, and not particularly competitive time wise.

 

[Wychwood93]

Did there used to be direct trains Calais to Brussels?. Years ago, in the early to mid 1970s my aunt & uncle visited my cousin who was living at the time in Brussels travelling by trains and boat.

I assumed that they would have gone via the longer Dover/Ostend Sealink crossing, but it seems they went Dover or Folkestone to Calais and got a direct through train from there to Brussles Midi. It was a day time service they went one, not the Night Ferry.

Certainly from Ostend to Brussels - did it once, many years ago, boat train from Victoria to Dover Marine, ferry and then train onwards from Ostend to Brussels, through in my case although it did stop in Brussels. Not sure how well things actually connected - if they did!

 

[Struner]

AFAIR there were through sleeper/night trains Calais-Brussel those days.
But day trains might have required a change at Lille? - & just dat Lille? Don’t remember now
It is a shorter sea crossing of course. People may have been keener on that

 

[30907]

AFAIR there were through sleeper/night trains Calais-Brussel those days.
But day trains might have required a change at Lille? - & just dat Lille? Don’t remember now
It is a shorter sea crossing of course. People may have been keener on that

No, the Night Ferry sleeper always ran via Dunkerque as there was never a train ferry berth at Calais.

 

[dutchflyer]

On the final days of the then RMT Ferrylink Dover-Oostende there was a strike and we were put on the Dover-Calais ferry, where a belgian BUS awaited us and brought us to Oostende for onward trains.
Main trains from Calais to not-Paris were the overnight expresses toward Strasbourg-Switzerland etc.

 

[Czesziafan]

Just checked the 1976 BR international timetable and all rail traffic to Brussels, except the Night Ferry, was via Ostend. It is just possible that some disruption at Ostend resulted in a one-off diversion via Calais but as has been said above the route from Calais is not logical or economically viable. Having said that before the Second World War there was a Wagons Lits Pullman from Calais to Brussels that connected with the Golden Arrow, but that ended 80 years ago.