Eurostar Snow Train or Travelski Night Express: 2026/27 compared

Two winter trains run into the same French valley, and they are not the same product. The Eurostar Snow Train is a Saturday daytime service, from London with a change at Lille Europe, or straight through from Amsterdam and Brussels. The Travelski Night Express is a Friday night sleeper from Paris and, new this season, from the Benelux. The day train carries more luggage. The night train saves you a ski day.

Both operators’ own pages were read on 17 September 2026. Every date below falls after the 13 December 2026 European timetable change, which is when the 2026/27 timetable actually loads, so treat the stopping patterns and season dates here as read before the change and confirm your own date on the operator’s page before you book.

What is the Eurostar Snow Train, and when does it run?

It is a Saturday day train into the Tarentaise.

Eurostar sells it one winter at a time, and for 2026/27 the London departures go every Saturday from 19 December 2026 to 20 February 2027, with returns from the Alps between 27 December 2026 and 28 February 2027, on Sunday mornings or selected Saturday afternoons. The train calls at Chambery, Albertville, Moutiers, Aime-La-Plagne, Landry and Bourg-Saint-Maurice, which is every station that serves the Tarentaise ski areas rather than a token stop or two. Eurostar puts London to Bourg-Saint-Maurice at just under 8 hours, and the journey home at 9 hours.

The stopping pattern is the reason this train matters rather than a novelty. Chambery and Albertville are the valley towns at the bottom. Moutiers is the gateway for the Trois Vallees, Aime-La-Plagne and Landry cover the middle Tarentaise, and Bourg-Saint-Maurice is the terminus that serves Les Arcs, Tignes and Val d’Isere. Between those six stations sits a large share of the French ski beds that a British or Dutch skier would actually book, which is not true of any other single train in the Alps.

The service from the Benelux is the same train with a much longer season. It picks up at Amsterdam Centraal, Rotterdam Centraal, Antwerpen-Centraal and Brussels-Midi, runs on Saturdays from 19 December 2026 to 3 April 2027, and returns until 10 April 2027. Eurostar quotes 9 hours from Amsterdam to Bourg-Saint-Maurice and 6 hours 30 minutes from Brussels, which puts a Belgian skier in the valley inside a working day.

That is six more weeks of skiing from Amsterdam than from London, on the same train.

Is the London train direct, or do you change at Lille?

You change at Lille Europe.

Eurostar’s own page is unambiguous about it: “Travel from London St Pancras International to Bourg-Saint-Maurice, with a simple connection at Lille Europe.” The same page tells you what to do when you arrive, which is to go up to the main floor and read the departures board. Most guides still call the London service a direct ski train, and the round numbers that circulate for it are written as though one train leaves St Pancras and stops in the Alps. What actually happens is that you ride a Eurostar to Lille and join the through train that started its morning in the Benelux.

Once you know that, the rest of the timetable makes sense. The train you join at Lille runs the same Saturdays, calls at the same six French stations and opens its season on the same date as the service Eurostar sells from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Brussels. The London leg is a feeder onto that. It also explains the thing that looks odd on the calendar, which is that the London season closes in February while the Benelux one keeps going into April.

The change is a genuine one, and it is also a small one. Same station, same operator, one flight of stairs, and your skis come with you rather than being checked through. It is not the Paris routing, where you cross the city between Gare du Nord and a second terminus with your bags, and it is not an airport connection with a bag drop and a second security queue.

The practical effect is on the people carrying things, not on the clock.

A couple with a bag each and one ski bag each will find it a non-event. A family of four with boot bags and a toddler has a timed transfer inside a busy international station on the single busiest Saturday of the ski calendar, and that is a different afternoon.

What is the Travelski Night Express, and what is new this season?

A Friday night sleeper, with a second route this winter.

Travelski runs it with Pegasus Trains, a new entrant to the French rail market, for Compagnie des Alpes. The train leaves on Friday evening and arrives in the Tarentaise on Saturday morning, then turns round on Saturday evening for a Sunday morning arrival back at the origin. Compagnie des Alpes describes the season as 15 return journeys between mid-December and the end of March; the research behind this page puts the first Paris departure on Friday 18 December 2026 and the last on Friday 26 March 2027, from Travelski’s UK page, which could not be re-read on the retrieval date. The Paris departure is from Gare d’Austerlitz, which is what Travelski’s own page says, not the Gare de Lyon most write-ups name.

New for 2026/27 is the Benelux working: Amsterdam, calling at Rotterdam, Antwerp and Brussels, on the same Friday night pattern. It is the smaller of the two trains, at around 400 berths against 660 on the Paris route, which matters more than it sounds when a whole season fits into fifteen Fridays. Onboard you choose between a seat, Standard, Standard Plus and Premiere, and the train sets down at Moutiers, Aime and Bourg-Saint-Maurice rather than working the full Tarentaise stopping pattern.

For a Dutch or Belgian reader that second route changes the question. Until this winter the choice from Amsterdam was the Saturday day train or a flight, and a Friday night departure meant getting yourself to Paris first. Now both directions of the trade are available from the same station, on consecutive nights of the same weekend, which is a position no other origin in this comparison is in.

Both routes sell as a train ticket on its own or bundled with a resort apartment, and the Paris and Benelux trains have their own shopfronts, so search the right one. Check what a package does with the road leg from the station to the accommodation before you compare it against a ticket, because that leg is the part neither train solves.

Which dates do the two trains actually run?

Here is the season, side by side.

	Eurostar Snow, London	Eurostar Snow, Benelux	Travelski Night Express
Runs	Saturdays, daytime	Saturdays, daytime	Friday nights
Out	19 Dec 2026 to 20 Feb 2027	19 Dec 2026 to 3 Apr 2027	mid-Dec to end of March
Back	27 Dec 2026 to 28 Feb 2027	26 Dec 2026 to 10 Apr 2027	Saturday evenings
Change	at Lille Europe	none	none

Read the first column against the second and the London season is the short one, closing in February while the same train keeps running from Amsterdam into April. Read across the bottom row and the Benelux is the only origin with two through trains, one by day and one by night, on consecutive nights of the same weekend.

If you are skiing in March from London, the Eurostar Snow Train is not an option at all.

One caveat sits over every row of that table. European railways reset their annual timetable on 13 December 2026, and these two services only exist inside the timetable that loads on that date. A season page published in September is written against what the operator intends to run, and the detail that moves afterwards is usually the stopping pattern on the shoulder weeks. Re-read both operator pages after 13 December if your trip falls in the first or last fortnight.

Day train or night train: which trade are you making?

You are trading a day for a bed.

The Saturday day train costs you the Saturday. You leave London in the morning, you arrive in the valley in the evening, and the first ski day is Sunday. In exchange you sleep in a hotel bed on both sides of the trip, you see the Rhone valley and the run up the Tarentaise in daylight, and you are not trying to sleep in a moving vehicle the night before you put boots on.

The Friday night train costs you the night and gives the Saturday back. Board in Paris or Amsterdam on Friday evening, wake up at Moutiers or Bourg-Saint-Maurice on Saturday morning, and you can be on snow by lunchtime if your accommodation takes bags early. Coming home, the Saturday evening departure means you ski Saturday and still wake up at home on Sunday.

That is a full extra day on the mountain for a week that costs the same number of nights away.

The return leg is where the two trains diverge most sharply, and it is the leg people plan last. Eurostar brings you home on a Sunday morning or a selected Saturday afternoon, which means either surrendering the last morning or giving up the Sunday at home. Travelski leaves the Alps on Saturday evening, so you ski a full final day, sleep on the way and walk out of the station on Sunday morning with the weekend still intact. For anyone who has to be at a desk on Monday, that difference is worth more than an hour of journey time either way.

The catch is what you are like after a night in a couchette. A shared compartment, a train that stops and starts, and an early morning set down is a real ski day for some people and a write-off for others, and nobody finds out which they are until they have done it once. Book the day train the first time if you do not know.

What can you take? Ski bags and luggage compared

Eurostar is the more generous of the two, by a distance.

On the Snow Train, one pair of skis or one snowboard per passenger travels free and in addition to the normal allowance, provided it is in a protective case that covers the whole item with straps attached to the case. The normal allowance in Standard and Plus is two pieces of luggage up to 85cm plus one piece of hand luggage, and Premier carries three pieces instead of two. There are dedicated racks for the equipment, which is the part that makes a difference when the whole carriage has skis.

The Travelski Night Express is tighter, and the operator says so plainly: one suitcase plus one piece of hand luggage per passenger. Skis are one pair per person, in a labelled cover, and they go under the bottom berth or above the seats rather than into a dedicated van. There is no published ski-carriage policy beyond that, so a family arriving with boot bags, a board bag and a week’s worth of clothing is working inside a sleeping compartment, not a luggage car.

Both operators count a ski bag and a boot bag as different things, and only one of them is free. Boots, helmets and poles come out of the ordinary luggage count, which is where the Travelski limit of one suitcase starts to bite, because a pair of ski boots is most of a suitcase before anything else goes in.

The case requirement is written precisely on both sides, which is a clue about how it is read. Eurostar asks for a protective case covering the whole item, with straps attached to the case. Travelski asks for a labelled cover. A loose pair with a strap round the middle satisfies neither wording, and on a train where every passenger is carrying the same shape of object, the wording is the thing to plan against.

Four people with full kit fit comfortably on one of these trains and awkwardly on the other.

Where does the train actually leave you?

At a valley station, not at a resort.

Bourg-Saint-Maurice is the end of the line and the better of the two arrivals. Les Arcs is a funicular from beside the platform, about 7 minutes, and in winter the round trip is free with a train ticket, which is as close to a station-to-piste connection as the French Alps get. Sainte-Foy-Tarentaise is about 25 minutes onward by bus. Val d’Isere and Tignes are about 45 minutes, and that bus is a regional service running to its own timetable, not something the train waits for.

Moutiers-Salins-Brides-les-Bains is the busier stop, at roughly 420,000 passengers a year, because the Trois Vallees funnel through it. Courchevel and Meribel are about 30 minutes up the road by bus, Val Thorens and Les Menuires about an hour, and Brides-les-Bains is walkable from the platform. Every one of those onward legs is a road that the whole valley uses on the same Saturday.

Saturday is the day that separates the two stations. Bourg-Saint-Maurice hands most of its arrivals to a funicular that runs on its own cycle and does not care how full the road is. Moutiers hands its arrivals to a road, and on a changeover Saturday the Trois Vallees are trying to empty and fill through the same valley at the same hour. The timetable looks identical in January and in February half term; the queue for the bus does not.

Neither SNCF nor the resorts publish a reliable last winter departure for any of those buses, which is why this site will not print one. If your train is delayed into the evening, the onward leg is the part of the journey with no published floor under it. A night train that arrives on Saturday morning has the whole day to absorb a delay, and a day train that arrives in the evening does not, which is a point for the sleeper that has nothing to do with sleeping.

How do you book each one?

Directly with the operator, and early.

Eurostar sells the Snow Train from its own ski train page, in Standard, Plus and Premier, as a train ticket or bundled with accommodation. The Travelski Night Express sells from Travelski’s own page, as a seat or a berth grade, or inside a package with a resort apartment. This site does not print train fares, for either train or in any currency, because what you pay depends almost entirely on how early you book and a quoted figure is out of date before the season starts.

Book early for the reason that applies to seasonal trains and not to ordinary ones. These are not services with a departure every couple of hours that you can fall back on; they are a fixed number of departures, sold once, with school holidays landing on the same dates for every market the train serves. February half term is the hardest week to get, from any origin, on either train.

Fifteen Friday nights and a London season that closes in February is not much supply for a whole winter.

The verdict, and the one trip neither train wins

Each train wins a different reader.

The Eurostar Snow Train wins for anyone leaving from London, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp or Brussels with more luggage than they want to carry through a sleeper. It wins outright for couples and pairs of friends, for anyone who wants both nights in a bed that is not moving, and for anyone skiing in March from the Benelux, where it is the only through option left on the calendar.

The Travelski Night Express wins when the ski day matters more than the night. Leaving Paris or Amsterdam on Friday evening and skiing on Saturday is a genuinely better week than the same trip with a travel day bolted to the front of it, and for a Benelux reader the choice between the two trains is now a choice about sleep rather than a choice about whether a train exists. London readers have the harder version of the problem: the day train is a connection, and the night train is not sold from their city at all.

Neither wins for three or more people with full equipment arriving on a Saturday changeover.

That is the standing exception on this site and it holds here. Saturday is changeover day across the Alps, so the onward bus from Moutiers or Bourg-Saint-Maurice is carrying a whole valley’s worth of arrivals on the one road that goes up, at the same hour, on roughly a dozen Saturdays a year. Add a group carrying skis, boots and a week of bags through a station change, and the part of the journey that looked trivial on paper becomes the part that decides what time you eat. The trains themselves are fine. The last mile is what breaks.

The same is true when the dates simply do not fit: an early December week, a late April week, or any week where you cannot leave on a Friday or a Saturday. At that point the honest answer is not a train at all, but a flight into Geneva Airport and a private transfer up the valley, which is the routing that reaches Val d’Isere and Tignes without waiting for a bus that nobody publishes a last departure for.