Eurostar have announced that they will be running a direct service from London St Pancras to Amsterdam by the end of 2017, taking on the airlines for the lucrative Christmas period.

Current Eurostar route is via Brussels Midi and the journey takes 4 hours 40 minutes. The new service, initially two trains a day is expected to take just under 4 hours, and a new direct service to Rotterdam is expected to follow.

In 2013 Eurostar told the press that the direct Amsterdam service would be operational by 2016.