We are travelling this summer from Marseille to Brussels with five people on Interrail passes. There is almost or no availability on this route for seat reservations, I tried a few seconds after they were available to book to no avail. So I ended up booking seats to Lille (easy and great availability) and figured I’d pay cash for the remainder of the trip to Brussels.
However, the very same train with the same number 9868, was “Fully booked” from the moment the tickets were released, even for cash tickets, from Lille to Brussels. Though a very similar TGV train, with the number 9864 travels the exact same route at the exact same time.
I managed to book tickets on this one. But my question is, is this actually the same train? It seems odd to run two TGV services at the exact same time on the exact same route, and having one be basically unbookable.
This is all very to confusing, and Im hoping we just have to change places/carriage at Lille, and not run to a different platform (with only 11 minutes planned transfer time, so a slight delay will mess that up).
Does anyone know whats going on with this route and if its the same train?
