New Substation to Save 20 Minutes on Luxembourg-Brussels Rail Journeys

Luxembourg's Ministry of Mobility and Public Works announced that the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Mobility and Public Works, François Bausch, will participate with his Belgian federal counterpart, Georges Gilkinet, in the inauguration of the new Heinsch "25 kV" substation in Arlon on 26 August 2022.

As part of the modernisation project for axis 3 "Brussels-Luxembourg", one of the ambitious projects underway on the Belgian network, the section of line 162 "Namur-Arlon/frontière" located between Hatrival and the Luxembourg border at Sterpenich will switch to 25 kV. This switchover to 25 kV on a 66 km section of the Brussels-Namur-Luxembourg line will allow better movement of trains and heavier trains at a higher speed.

This is the first achievement of a project undertaken by teams from Infrabel and its subsidiary TUC RAIL, launched in 2010. The work led by Belgium aims to reduce travel times between Brussels and Luxembourg.

A representative of Luxembourg's railway company, the CFL, has confirmed that the time saving on the journey between Luxembourg and Brussels on regional trains will be about 20 minutes whilst trains with fewer stops / stations would have even greater time saving.