iRail
Missing EC connections
The EC trains are missing when searching between Brussel-Midi and Paris-Nord. They do show up in the NBMS app, but not in iRail.
When querying /vehicle works though. e.g. https://staging.api.irail.be/vehicle/?lang=en&id=BE.NMBS.EC71&alerts=true&date=100824
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Do they show up using the &typeOfTransport=all parameter? iRail filters out busses and such by default. and they load fine in other api endpoints, so it seems like we might need to toggle a transport mode in the filter there. The filter is a bitstring sent to the NMBS based on reverse-engineering without documentation on which bit matches which transport modes, so EC trains being less common in 2017 probably led to them being missed back then.
Unfortunately I can't test it, as they don't run anymore apparently. The Olympics are over. They will run again for the Paralympics and then starting from December (if I'm not mistaken):
I set a reminder to test in a few weeks again. Thanks for the effort already!
Starting tomorrow, NMBS will run these slower trains to Paris. When searching for Bruxelles-Midi → Paris Nord, on 19/12/25 13:00, the NMBS app shows it in the search results. However, the iRail API doesn't.
I guess the bitcode for OTC (Ouigo Train Classique) trains needs to be added, as they run not as EC trains.
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@Bertware, turns out the OUIGO trains are shown when searching from a different station, e.g. Mons. Could it be there's something in the iRail config omitting the connection because it's much slower than the other results for Bruxelles-Midi → Paris-Nord (i.e. TGV, Eurostar).
If so, could this be tweaked further so OUIGO connections do show up? Thanks!
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This seems like it's a routeplanning issue. From Mons, you would have to travel "back" to brussels and change to another train, compared to taking the direct train to Paris. From Brussels however, the Eurostar/Thalys trains are the obvious choice as they are an hour faster. 08.22 -> 10,35 departs sooner and arrives later than 08.43 -> 10.05, therefore the eurostar is shown instead. The same behaviour can be seen in the NMBS app,
This is something NMBS can fix by tweaking the routeplanner configuration, but nothing that can be fixed with a reasonable amount of work on the iRail side (it would require adding a special case for french routes which adds another API call without the high speed trains, then combining them), just for those trains to pop up.
Not sure if I understand this correctly, but NMBS has this fixed already. They do show up from Brussels... Also, this hasn't much to do with French routes, but rather Ouigo routes.
The reason why it's important to show this Ouigo route, is because it's up to 10x cheaper than Eurostar. This train is now already super popular (I witnessed it myself yesterday in Brussel-Zuid).
Edit: The new ECD (and old Benelux trains) also show up on the route to Amsterdam, even though there's a faster Eurostar running there. So not showing Ouigo from Brussels (or Paris to Brussels) is really an error in the data we provide.
Tested with todays data, while the Ouigo trains don't run today. They do indeed show up in the original nmbs app when looking at yesterdays date, and can be hidden behind the "show fastest routes" option. When searching international trains, Irail now includes slower trains as well in the query to the route planner.
@Bertware this is great! Sounds like exactly what was missing. Thanks a lot, and happy holidays ✨
P.S. Ouigo is running today, e.g. the one at 18:38 shows up now.