PBKA is a high-speed trainset, manufactured by the French company GEC-Alsthom, and used on the international Eurostar service.
Originally built for Thalys (which later merged with Eurostar) they were intended to operate between Paris, Brussels, Köln (English: Cologne) and Amsterdam, forming the abbreviation PBKA.
They were initially intended to be sole rolling stock of the service, but their extreme cost and complexity due to their quadri-current capability led the order of a simpler tri-current sister class, the Thalys PBA, a TGV Réseau derivative, with which they can work in multiple (coupled together).
The PBKA trains are quadri-current, capable of operating under the same systems as the PBA sets: 25 kV 50 Hz AC (France), 3,000 V DC (Belgium) and 1,500 V DC (the Netherlands and parts of France), but with the addition of 15 kV 16.7 Hz AC (Germany).
[3][2] Seventeen trains were ordered: nine purchased by National Railway Company of Belgium, two by Deutsche Bahn of Germany, six by SNCF of France and two by Nederlandse Spoorwegen.