BLN 828.0279][BE][DE] Liège - Welkenraedt NMBS - Aachen DB - Düren - Köln: (Ball 9B1-10A2) SNCB/NMBS may be wavering in their resolve to build some 25km of high-speed line 3 from the edge of Liège at Chênée east on a new 220km/h alignment via Soumagne tunnel to the German frontier, and may yet settle for cheaper, but still expensive, upgrading of the classic line 37 through Verviers. Time-savings on such a short section of new line may not be worthwhile, especially as DB have opted for upgrading rather than new alignment east of Aachen, allowing 250km/h to Düren and 160km/h beyond to Köln. At Aachen Hbf, the catenary into platforms 6-9 and associated sidings is to lose its capability of being energised at the Belgian voltage of 3kV dc as well as the German 15kV 16.7Hz. This 1966 facility is not needed by Thalys TGVs or multivoltage Belgian locomotives of Class 16 or 18, but its loss will prevent ordinary Belgian 3kV traction such as Class 27 from operating through trains across the border here.

BLN 827.0249][BE] (Antwerpen -) Boom - Puurs: (BLN 813.0522; Ball 8B3; Lijn 52) Passenger service was due to begin again on Monday 25 May 1998, with two Antwerpen - Boom - Puurs - St.Niklaas trains each way SSuX.

BLN 829.0305][BE] (Antwerpen -) Boom - Puurs: (BLN 827.0249; Ball 8B3; Lijn 52) Passenger traffic has resumed, with special trains running free of charge on Friday 22 May prior to the regular SSuX service starting on Monday 25 May 1998. The service is still not reliable, though. On the afternoon of 15 June, the southbound Antwerpen - Boom train was met at Boom by a bus for Puurs - and, worse, the few passengers for the return northbound train to Antwerpen seemed to have been waiting at Boom since the bus a whole hour earlier. Possibly the problem was very tight working at Antwerpen Centraal, where a number of platforms are at present out of use.

BLN 828.0277][BE] (Brugge -) Y Dudzele - Zeebrugge: (Ball 7B3; Lijn 51A) In 1983 the Brugge - Knokke line was realigned around a new sea-lock for 125,000t ships, leaving a dead-end branch to the present Zeebrugge passenger station, ten minutes walk from the town-centre and the ferry-port. A new station in a more convenient location, Zeebrugge-Strand, may be opened by the end of 1998. (Trans-fer #107, April 1998)

BLN 830.0326][BE] (Brugge -) Y Dudzele - Zeebrugge: (BLN 828.0277; Ball 7B3; Lijn 51A) The realignment of the Brugge - Knokke line in 1983 involved some 10km of new double-track line skirting a huge area of expanded dock estate covering some 20km˛. New rail branches into that area are still gradually being created to serve ore terminals and the like as the port develops. The old line to Knokke was severed by phase one of the new dock development rather than by the sea-lock giving access to it. This line continues beyond Zeebrugge passenger station to serve quayside freight sidings, so is unlikely to be abandoned should a new Zeebrugge-Strand station open. The present heavy-rail passenger service to Zeebrugge, basically an hourly electric unit, is rarely other than lightly loaded, and NMBS have several times threatened to withdraw it, leaving the metre-gauge coastal tramway as the sole rail passenger connection. However the lack of traffic may be more due to the small resident population of the big port and of the the intermediate settlements on the branch rather than to the inconvenient location of the present terminus, which is in the main residential quarter, and not that far from what centre the town has. A new Strand station on the direct line heading north to the roll-on/roll-off area of the port would be nearer the beach, but the ferry-port itself would do little for train-loadings. P&O no longer carry passengers to Dover or Felixstowe, leaving one North Sea Ferries morning arrival from Hull plus evening departure, for which one connecting bus to Brugge usually suffices

BLN 823.0140][BE] (Brussel -) Hove - Antwerpen Berchem: (Ball 8B3) The autumn 1997 engineering works and diversions in the Mortsel area (BLN 808.0371) continued until 28 February 1998, and at weekends thereafter.

BLN 828.0276][BE] (Bruxelles/Brussel -) Hal/Halle - Antoing - Espléchin SNCB - Wannehain SNCF (- Lille): (BLN 820.067; Ball 7A1-8B2) SNCB/NMBS official nomenclature of the LGV Belge and associated curves is: Hal/Halle - French frontier (Ligne/Lijn 1; 300km/h; 25kV 50Hz from km15.410); Y Silly - Y Beauregard (Ligne 1/1; 80km/h); Y Patard - Y Coucou (Ligne 1/2; 80km/h); and Y Maubray - Y Antoing (Ligne 1/3; 160km/h). The three curves all have neutral sections for 25kV 50Hz/3kV dc electrification change-over. Only the last has a regular passenger service, the Paris - Namur TGV (BLN 813.0520). (Trans-fer #107, April 1998)

BLN 831.0355][BE] (Bruxelles/Brussel -) Y Zaventem - Bruxelles-National-Aéroport/Brussel-Nationaal-Luchthaven: (BLN 816.0594; Ball 10B2) On 1 May 1998 the old sharply-curved surface approach to the old airport station was disconnected, and the more direct 1.6km alignment of line 36C under the runways to the new airport station, underground and almost at right angles to the old one, opened. Only the northern parts of platforms 2 and 3 were available for use by the public that day, but the third 380m platform, and both tracks on the branch, were ready for the new timetable on 24 May, with a formal inauguration ceremony on Monday 25 May. SNCB/NMBS have made provision for a future east-to-north curve on to the airport branch from the Leuven direction, and for extending the branch itself north to a junction near Vilvoorde with the Brussel - Antwerpen line.

BLN 832.0372][BE] (Liège -) Chênée - Soumagne - Welkenraedt / Walhorn NMBS (-Aachen DB): (BLN 828.0279; Ball 9B1-10A2) The Belgian government decided on 29 May 1998 to go ahead after all with the high-speed line on new alignment rather than upgrading the classic line through Verviers. The new route is to rejoin the present line at Welkenraedt or just to the east at Walhorn. (Trans-fer #108, July 1998)

BLN 827.0250][BE] (Liège-Guillemins -) Y Val Benoît - Kinkempois - Flemalle-Haute: (Ball 9B1) Separately from the main passenger Ligne 125 (Liège-Guillemins - Tilleur - Flemalle-Haute - Statte - Namur) two distinct west-to-south freight-only curves formerly ran from Y Val Benoît, just across the river Meuse from Guillemins passenger station, round to Liège-Kinkempois freight yard. Ligne 125A, the more important freight line through to Flemalle-Haute, has now been singled. The parallel Ligne 125C, further to the west, broken during construction work on the city's new cross-river road (BLN 815.0571), now appears to be definitively closed and permanently removed.

BLN 820.067][BE] (Lille -) Antoing - Halle (- Brussel/Bruxelles): (BLN 802.0223; Ball 7B1-8A2; SNCB/NMBS Ligne 1) King Albert II of the Belgians inaugurated the Antoing - Halle section of the LGV Belge on Wednesday 10 December (Daily Telegraph, 11 December), and three years and one month after services began, Eurostars were timetabled to use the high-speed line from Sunday 14 December 1997, reducing the London - Brussel journey to 2h 40min. Today's Railways #26 reports however that the first commercial train to use the new line from end to end was Eurostar #9140, 14:23 London - Bruxelles on Wednesday 3 December, diverted because of a suicide at Ath.

BLN 823.0139][BE] Belgium: ticketing: Belgian rail tickets other than international CIV tickets used to disallow break of journey unless the ticket was endorsed by staff at the break-of-journey point. Now SNCB/NMBS will, on request at the time of booking, issue a ticket marked as valid via a named station, if the passenger wishes to break a journey there, or wishes to specify a route other than the obvious one.

BLN 831.0356][BE] Brussel/Bruxelles - Leuven - Liège: (Ball 8B2; SNCB/NMBS 36) The Brussel - Leuven section is to be quadrupled, with a new signalling-centre controlling the airport branch as well as the Leuven area. Station-remodelling, begun autumn 1997 under the STAR21 project, partly to accommodate the new Leuven - Liège (- Aachen) high-speed line, has seen the junctions at the southern end of Leuven station change their use during 1998. Previously, nearly all Leuven - Ottignies trains used the higher-numbered (eastern) platforms at Leuven and took line 139/1, the northeast-to-southwest double-track dive-under beneath main line 36, joining line 139 at Y Parkbrug. Now line 139/1 has been singled and appears to be used solely for freight, with all Ottignies passenger trains using the lower-numbered (western) platforms and the flat route, line 139 itself. From the freight lines on the north-east side of the Leuven layout line 36/2 heads south-east to a full flying junction, Y Molenbeek, giving access to line 36 towards Ličge. A couple of local trains a day used to run from Leuven's higher-numbered platforms via line 36/2, but access from the passenger platforms seems to have been removed and line 36/2 is not now in passenger use, at least for the duration of the remodelling.

BLN 826.0224][BE] Knokke - Oostende - De Panne: light rail: (Ball 7A3) Notwithstanding BLN 825.0203, before the Adinkerke extension can open many weeks of work must remain. East of the former De Panne turning-circle old street track is being ripped up and replaced, and the entire road junction where the turning-circle was has been dug up and dewired, along with the short approach to the now-isolated De Panne tram-depot. Buses are therefore replacing trams through Koksijde to De Panne, and traffic is diverted in several places. On Sunday 10 May 1998, a few workers were on site at the former turning-circle but the tempo of operations did not suggest completion was at all imminent, and the rest of the works were deserted. Four or five new poles had been erected and were still leaning at odd angles, but no other mast bases and no wiring at all could be seen anywhere on the extension. The double track petered out just south of the Duinhoekstraat roundabout, leaving a gap of empty formation next to piles of recently

BLN 832.0371][BE] Knokke - Oostende - De Panne: light rail: (Ball 7A3) The De Lijn Adinkerke extension was doing good business with Meli amusement-park customers on 8 July 1998, so it may well have opened as planned on 1 July (BLN 825.0203) after a burst of effort in the final weeks (BLN 826.0224). Trams were adopting a curious mode of departure from the loop at De Panne NMBS station, reversing 100m before coming forwards and sailing non-stop through the unfinished tram-station. Some of the trackwork had clearly still to be completed.

BLN 830.0325][BE] Knokke - Oostende - De Panne: light rail: (Ball 7A3) The temporary disruption to the tram-tracks in De Panne (BLN 826.0224) was requiring the trams to turn back at Nieuwpoort Bad on 21 May 1998, giving an opportunity to visit the reversing siding there.

BLN 825.0203][BE] Knokke - Oostende - De Panne: light rail: (BLN 815.0570; Ball 7A3) The long-awaited metre-gauge extension south to De Panne NMBS, the standard-gauge station at Adinkerke, is planned to open 1 July 1998.

BLN 828.0278][BE] La Louvière-Sud - Y Haine-St.Pierre - Binche: (Ball 8A1) By summer 1998 the dreary edge-of-town station at La Louvière-Sud on the Mons - Charleroi west-east main line should have a sizeable new station building. The short passenger branch south to Binche (Ligne 108) is to be singled. (Trans-fer #107, April 1998)

BLN 828.0280][BE] Mariembourg - Chimay (- Momignies - Anor SNCF): (Ball 16B3-16A3) Notwithstanding the remark attributed to CFV3V in BLN 826.0225, the railway's glossy brochure does show a few 1998 workings on this line. On two dates only, Tuesday 21 July and Saturday 15 August, three round-trips to Chimay are to leave Mariembourg CFV3V depot at 11:40, 14:50 and 16:50, calling at Mariembourg SNCB station.

BLN 826.0225][BE] Mariembourg - Chimay (- Momignies - Anor SNCF): (BLN 762.0404; Ball 16B3-16A3) CFV3V say that no passenger trips to Chimay are planned for 1998, but Mariembourg - Treignes (16B3), and Dinant - Heer-Agimont - Givet SNCF (17A3-16B3) services will be similar to those in 1997.

BLN 830.0327][BE] Mariembourg - Chimay (- Momignies - Anor SNCF): (BLN 826.0225, 828.0280; Ball 16B3-16A3) Two different CFV3V brochures conflict about services to Chimay. When telephoned, a spokesman for CFV3V said that 'operating problems' would prevent trains there in 1998, and this message was later confirmed by letter.

BLN 836.0490][BE] Boom - Willebroek: (BLN 802.0225, 827.0249; Ball 8B3; Lijn 52/2) In addition to the Boom - Puurs line, now reinstated as single track, this short north-to-south curve is also being electrified and restored to use. Electrification equipment has already been erected, at the Boom end at least.

BLN 837.0548][FR][BE] (Dunkerque -) Bray-Dunes SNCF - De Panne NMBS: (BLN 815.0569; Ball 6B3-7A3) Bray-Dunes passenger building remains, with bricked-up toilets still bearing their Hommes sign, as in 1993 (BLN 713.04). The station area has been tidied and the tree growing between the rails in 1997 has gone, but the level-crossing has lost its barriers and the goods-shed is no more, while a new road now serves the Zone Industrielle beside the railway. The disused single line remains in place across the border. Beyond the Langeleedstraat level-crossing, the single track becomes a rusty unelectrified double-track loop, alongside the 3000V dc electrified sidings where NMBS Brussel - De Panne trains lie over between journeys, near the derelict signal-box. Points at the west end of De Panne station platform giving access from the Bray-Dunes direction seem intact, and colour-light signals guarding them are still lit, showing red aspects.

BLN 837.0549][BE] Brussel/Bruxelles: Y Jette - Y Pannenhuis - Simonis - B-West/Ouest - Y Cureghem (- B-Zuid/Midi): (BLN 736.0203, 769.06; Ball 10B2-10B1; Lijn/Ligne 28) The September 1998 timetable saw a regular if sparse service begin again on the north-to-south belt-line circling the city to the west, long earmarked for a possible future RER. Three Mon-Fri Brussel - Dendermonde P53xx trains each way, out in the morning and back in the afternoon, making no intermediate calls on the belt-line, hardly constitute an RER, however. Presumably they use the alternative route to relieve congestion on the very busy Noord/Nord - Centraal/Central - Zuid/Midi link.

BLN 837.0550][BE] Bruxelles/Brussel trams: Métro route 1A was extended westwards one station from Heysel to Roi Baudouin from 25 August 1998, according to STIB posters. On the busy north-south ‘pre-métro’ underground tram-route between Nord/Noord and Midi/Zuid stations, a surge of flood water on 5 October pushed out the tunnel-wall under Place Rogier, causing a blockage expected to last for several days.

BLN 837.0551][BE] Antwerpen-Berchem - Antwerpen-Centraal: (BLN 791.0467; Ball 8B3) Berchem was officially renamed Antwerpen-Berchem from the May 1998 timetable, reflecting its increased importance while the diamond city’s distinguished early-20th-century terminus, Centraal, is extensively upgraded, making way for the new south-to-north high-speed main line to the Netherlands to run under the existing station in tunnel. The carriage sidings in the triangle just north of Berchem have been replaced by new ones at Schijnpoort, and Berchem north-to-east curve has been realigned to swing rather further south into the area of the triangle. Since May a number of trains have been diverted at Berchem to run to or via Antwerpen Oost to reduce demand for the temporarily limited platform space at Centraal. Only four out of the ten terminal platforms were available on 17 October 1998.

BLN 837.0552][BE] Antwerpen trams: The link at Ten Eekhovelei, just beyond Sportpaleis, between the ‘pre-metro’ tunnel of route #3 and the outer end of route #12 is complete, but not yet in regular use in October 1998. West of Sportpaleis #12 trams continue to use their surface route. This has single-track sections where the inward and outward tracks use different roads, with a flat crossing between the two directions at one point.

BLN 839.0594][BE][NL] Neerpelt - Hamont NMBS - Budel NS - Weert: (BLN 694.08, 811.0461; Ball 9B3) Belgium’s 1998 TTB (= Train+Tram+Bus) day on 3 October saw some Antwerpen Centraal - Neerpelt trains again extended, calling every two hours at Hamont station on this freight-only line to Weert in the Netherlands.

BLN 840.0612][BE] Charleroi light rail: (BLN 773.090; Ball 8B1 not shown) Connoisseurs of the unusual in European light rail ought not to miss this small system, whose long-term future is unclear. The town was for many years the centre of a large network of metre-gauge Vicinal secondary lines, and the intention as late as the mid-1980s was that over 50km would be extensively modernised, relocated and re-equipped. For a variety of reasons, notably the decline of the local steel industry, most of this never happened, and what is now left, a fragment of the original network amounting to c.25km, is an astonishing example of unavailing investment. Over the ten years from 1976 the lines in the centre of Charleroi were placed largely underground and called the Réseau Métro, the original plan being a double-track inner ring with branches leading off in some six directions to connect with renovated or new surface lines. The Réseau Métro, fully block-signalled, is all far too elaborate for the traffic on offer. None of the system has much in the way of advertising or public information - though tourists in this industrial area are no doubt few. A day-ticket was bought from the guichet at Sud station tram-terminal, with some difficulty, not for linguistic reasons but through incomprehension that anyone would want one! With at most two cars an hour - and on 15 August 1998, admittedly a public holiday, almost no-one to be seen - the vast and sepulchral stations and complex infrastructure seemed incredible. Where did they think the traffic would come from? On a dozen cars a total of ten passengers were carried, and much of the time BLN’s reporter was the only person on board. And the whole undertaking closes down at 20:00 each evening.

Notable even among all the profusion is Beaux-Arts station, a huge cavern next to the regional exhibition centre, with an underground reversing-loop and three platform-faces. A former Charleroi town tram and trailer are on display on a further, unused, platform. Escalators, a ticket-office and a huge mezzanine concourse were undisturbed by any travellers at all, and with few direction signs an uninstructed stranger might well have spent all day there. Waterloo is similar, but wholly underground, with a tunnel leading off northwards for the never-completed Jumet spur, and a siding containing works vehicles just to the south-west. The other six underground stations are not quite so elaborate, but equally empty. From Beaux-Arts a short branch runs above ground south to the tram-terminal, rebuilt with an overall roof and a turning-circle layout in 1997, in the forecourt of the main Charleroi Sud SNCB railway station. The 16km line from Beaux-Arts due west to Piges and Anderlues, once part of the much longer Vicinal line to Binche and La Louvière, is in practice the only one of the original branches to be renovated, being progressively upgraded after 1982, mainly on viaduct or private-right-of-way, but with two sections in tunnel including the stations at De Cartier and Fontaine l’Evêque. The original street line northwards from Piges, although partly renovated, is used only for access to Jumet depot, 4km away, and Gosselies ASVi depot beyond. Lines in tunnel from Beaux-Arts east to Waterloo and on east via two intermediate stations to Gilly opened 28 August 1992 (BLN 698.06) and from Waterloo south via one station to Parc on 30 August 1996. A longer branch can be seen from the tram beyond Waterloo station, rusty and weed-grown, heading south-eastwards on the surface through four stations to Centenaire, but while apparently complete this has never opened to traffic. All yet to be built are a surface extension beyond Gilly to Soleilmont, a line in tunnel from Waterloo north to Jumet, an extension beyond the unopened Centenaire to Châtelet, and a short south-eastern segment of the inner ring between Parc and Sud. Curiously both the Gilly and Centenaire branches seem to have been built for left-hand running, with crossings on each branch just after the junction at Waterloo, and central island platforms thereafter. Had single-sided vehicles been used or intended, this would have been a way of serving the island platforms, but as the Anderlues line uses right-hand running with island platforms, and in any case all the trams have doors on both sides, the arrangement seems inexplicable.

In startling contrast to the over-sophisticated Réseau Métro is the unsignalled section over which the trams run through beyond the Charleroi boundary for about 3km to the west through the village of Anderlues to Monument terminus. This continues to exist as the very last fully-operational example of vintage Vicinal, including - as if for a museum exhibit - an unsignalled blind crossing of a main road, a passing-loop used every half-hour in the middle of a meadow, gutter-running beside a main road, another passing-loop in the middle of a suburban street, a rural tram-depot, and a terminus on a pavement, nowhere in particular. Part of this unusual survival was attractively refurbished as recently as October 1996, with part of Rue Janson just before the terminus receiving new paving and street-furniture, with raised kerbs to keep cars off the tram track. But the work was not finished, and the immediate environs of Anderlues depot cannot have changed much in seventy years. They look much as, say, the British Black Country network around Dudley or Stourbridge must have done in its last years.

When Belgium’s Vicinal light railways were split in 1991, those in French-speaking Wallonia became Transport en Commun, in practice divided among five different TEC operating entities. Compared with De Lijn’s Flemish coast tram operations, also ex-Vicinal, TEC Charleroi are a dispiriting undertaking, with many cars still in shabby old Vicinal orange paint. Of the 50 double-ended articulated cars built new for the undertaking in 1980-82, only about 30 remain available and only some 20 seem actually required, based at two depots, Anderlues and Jumet. The ASVi preservation group, operators of the (Anderlues -) Lobbes - Thuin museum-tramway (BLN 769.05), also keep working preserved cars in part of Anderlues depot and at the former Gosselies depot beyond Jumet.