The train was late leaving London – 14 months tardy, no less – but history was made today as Eurostar finally launched its long-awaited service to Amsterdam. The journey time: just three hours and 41 minutes.

There were no paying punters aboard the 8.31am from St Pancras – which Eurostar had initially planned to launch in December 2016 – just a handful of journalists and industry people, who’d been invited to experience the new route ahead of its official launch on April 4.

Telegraph Travel's Gavin Haines boards the new Eurostar service with his bike Credit: Gavin Haines

As we tucked into a cooked breakfast designed by Raymond Blanc – the misty Kent scenery a blur on the other side of the window – tickets for the forthcoming service went on sale to the general public, with one-way fares starting from just £35.

London to Amsterdam is currently one of the busiest air routes in Europe, but Eurostar reckons its new high-speed rail service will soon change all that.

“We know that many passengers do not enjoy the experience of flying short haul,” Nicolas Petrovic, Eurostar’s outgoing CEO, told me, as we hurtled towards Amsterdam. “Now they have another choice.”

So should the airlines be worried? Well, Eurostar is certainly competing with the low-cost carriers on price; the cheapest flight we could find to Amsterdam this April was £27, which, by the time you’ve added bags, chosen your seats and bought a ticket to the airport, works out more expensive than the cheapest Eurostar.

And once you’ve factored in the time spent dwelling in the airport, there’s not much difference in journey time between the plane and train – at least not on the outbound journey (more on that later).

The train is also better for the environment, more refined and more productive for business passengers; indeed the plug sockets and free Wi-Fi aboard the new e320 carriages, which will be used on this route, made this very story possible.

That’s not all. The seats are more comfortable, there’s more legroom and there are no tedious liquid restrictions or baggage charges to worry about; I was even able to take my fold-up bike, which wouldn’t have been practical on the plane.

Telegraph logo This video content is no longer available To watch The Telegraph's latest video content please visit youtube.com/telegraph

So it was with a certain smugness that I zipped through Kent, France and Belgium, where, precisely one hour and 48 minutes after leaving London, we stopped in Brussels. That's another thing about the new Amsterdam service: it cuts the journey time between the English and Belgian capitals by 17 minutes.

Onboard the train there was an announcement as we crossed the border into Holland; Champagne was served.

The next stop was Rotterdam, which we arrived at three hours and one minute after leaving London. One feels the Netherlands’ second city, and its surrounds, have perhaps the most to gain from the new service.

Amsterdam Centraal appears on the Departures board at St Pancras International for the first ime Credit: Gavin Haines

“Rotterdam is not that well known as a destination,” said Petrovic. “We want to change that.”

We pulled into Amsterdam Centraal three hours and 41 minutes (give or take) after leaving St Pancras.

Soon I was looking out across Singel with a cold beer, listening contentedly to the familiar sounds of Amsterdam: bikes rattling over cobbles, bells ringing, motor boats chugging down the canals.

It cheered me that this wonderful city was now only a train ride away, but I doubted the local authorities felt the same: Amsterdam has been feeling the impact of mass tourism lately and there have been numerous attempts to reduce the number of people visiting the city. The Dutch capital has clipped the wings of Airbnb, banned new hotels from opening in the historic centre and introduced a new tourist tax to deter unruly stag and hen dos.

I dropped the tourist board an email to see what they thought of the new service – and the reply was telling.

“The new Eurostar service to Holland serves both Rotterdam and Amsterdam,” responded Sandra Ishmael, a director at the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions.

“It is a great opportunity to give British visitors another route to Holland – and Rotterdam is a great city for the British to discover. Amsterdam provides a gateway for British visitors to discover other Dutch cities including Haarlem, Utrecht and The Hague.”

I only had an hour and a half in Amsterdam before hopping back on the train to London. Only there wasn’t a direct train to London and nor will there be until the end of 2019, thus exposing the biggest flaw in the new Eurostar service; it’s currently only one-way.

That’s fine if you’re moving permanently to the Netherlands, but if like most visitors you want to return home to your family you’ll have to take a Thalys train to Brussels where you go through passport control and change onto a Eurostar service to London.

Eurostar acknowledges this is a problem, though it remains powerless while the governments in the UK and the Netherlands complete an agreement which will enable passport checks to be conducted on departure in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

“That’s the final piece of the jigsaw,” said Petrovic. “The Dutch government has agreed to put that in place in 2019 - the sooner the better. It’s not ideal.”

The London to Amsterdam train takes three hours and 41 minutes Credit: Getty

Until an agreement is reached, the inbound journey will take at least four hours and 40 minutes and require changing trains. It’s hard to see how this will sway people off the plane.

BA certainly isn’t concerned. I contacted them in Holland to see what they made of the new (currently one-way Eurostar service), which will depart St Pancras twice a day: at 8.31 and 17.31.

“We know our customers enjoy the choice of 17 flights from London a day, with airports to suit travellers starting their journey from all across the region,” a spokesperson told me.

“And with a flight time of just 80 minutes, they’ll sampling a beer by the canals long before the train pulls in.”

Sounds like a challenge: the race is on.