I will be taking a Thaly's train from Amsterdam to Paris in a few weeks, and in the interest of time, I was wondering what sort of customs / passport check / luggage search one must go through along the way. The trip is four hours or so with 5-6 stops along the way.

I do not plan to exit the train anywhere, except at the end of the line at Gare du Nord.

Any help is appreciated!

France, Belgium and The Netherlands are all in the Schengen common border zone, so traveling among the three is like going between three states in the US. No border control, no customs. There might be security checks due to recent terrorist threats, but that's it.

No immigration control. No customs either.

I was reminded of this by the "getting stoned in Amsterdam" thread.

When I arrived on the Thalys from Amsterdam 3 years ago, the French police were very much present on the platform.

They had a tendency to detain and search the bags of blond-haired, blue-eyed 20 somethings. They did pull aside a few dark-haired 20 somethings.

Luckily I'm middle aged with brown hair.

I just took Thalys to/from Brussels and Paris a few weeks ago and no one ever checked my passport. There weren't any checks.