Train World – Belgium’s railway museum
Yinka Jan Sojinu visits the impressive Train World railway museum at Brussels’ Schaerbeek/Schaarbeek.
Yinka Jan Sojinu visits the impressive Train World railway museum at Brussels’ Schaerbeek.
In 1835, just few years after the country’s independence from The Netherlands, Belgium became the first continental European importer of the British railway invention. The city of Brussels became the world’s first railway-connected capital, conveniently positioned centrally amid a rail network that would eventually expand to its current impressive size of some 2,238 miles (3,602km). In comparison to Belgium’s landmass of just 11,787 square miles (30,528 square km) this makes it one of the most dense railway systems in the world (according to Infrabel).
The Belgian Train World national railway museum is in Brussels’ district of Schaerbeek, also spelt Schaarbeek, and is hosted by the Nationale Maatschappij der Belgische
Spoorwegen (NMBS), also known in French as the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Belges (SNCB). It tells the story of Belgium’s rail history and displays an impressive collection of beautiful rolling stock.
History
Belgium’s early railway history started to gain public recognition on October 30, 1951 when the nation’s first railway museum opened its doors within the old BrusselsNoord station. Soon afterwards it had to be temporarily moved nearer to BrusselsCongrés station until it could go back to a renovated Brussels-North seven years later in 1958. This refurbished complex is currently the busiest station on the SNCB/ NMBS network.
At the time, two modest-sized buildings exhibited a selection of historical artifacts, models and an original narrow gauge steam engine named Pays de Waes, which served as the centrepiece of the display until its closure in 2006. As well as what was kept at this museum and an additional facility called De Mijlpaal at the central rolling stock workshops in Mechelen, the NMBS/SNCB historic heritage service, former workshop maintenance staff and several private preservation societies had succeeded in saving and preserving some of the most important specimens of heritage rolling stock on behalf of future generations. The major part of these precious examples found shelter in and around three mostly inaccessible depots at Leuven, Schaerbeek and La Louvière.
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