How can I take a train from Brussells to Paris that is not Thalys?

The alternative to Thalys is to take a TGV from Brussels to Lille then change to a TGV that runs from Lille to Paris.

Luke obviously doesn't understand the concept of Eurorail, which is a pre-bought rail pass for European train travel .

Your group of students will obviously want to use their Eurorail passes since they are paid for to travel by train, and taking a coach as suggested above might be as expensive as paying a supplement for a train depending when you travel. Coach tickets can be as much as €34 for a single journey at peak time.

You can check the differential on here:

http://www.visitingeu.com/western-europe/belgium/2...

you could take a bus, it is not a much longer journey than taking the ordinary train and is a lot cheaper than any train service. the tgv is still gonna be expensive as it is also a high speed train.