History of Rail Transport in Belgium

History of Rail Transport in Belgium

Belgium was heavily involved in the early development of railway transport. Belgium was the second country in Europe, after Great Britain, to open a railway and produce locomotives. The first line, between the cities of Brussels and Mechelen opened in 1835. Belgium was the first state in Europe to create a national railway network and the first to possess a nationalised railway system. The network expanded fast as Belgium industrialised, and by the early 20th century was increasingly under state-control. The nationalised railways, under the umbrella organisation National Railway Company of Belgium (NMBS/SNCB), retained their monopoly until liberalisation in the 2000s.

History of Rail Transport in Belgium Background

Attempts to build railways in Belgium significantly predated the establishment of the first line. In 1829, the British-Belgian industrialist John Cockerill tried to obtain a concession from the Dutch king William I to build a railway line from Brussels to Antwerp, without success. Shortly after the independence of Belgium from the Netherlands after the Belgian Revolution of 1830, a debate opened on the desirability of establishing public railway lines using the steam locomotives recently developed in England, where the first private railway had been completed in 1825.

History of Rail Transport in Belgium Post-Independence

Following the Belgian Revolution of 1830, when Belgium split from the Netherlands, Belgium became a key site of railway development. In 1831, a proposal to build a railway between Antwerp and Cologne (in neighbouring Prussia) which would link the industrializing Ruhr and Meuse valleys with the ports of the Scheldt was considered by the Chamber of Representatives but was eventually rejected. In August 1831, however, the government launched a big scale survey (under the supervision of Pierre Simons and Gustave de Ridder) of potential sites for railways which, it was hoped, would help to regenerate the Belgian economy. Particularly in liberal circles, it was felt that railways would not serve a purely economic function, but were also necessary part of forging Belgian national identity.

Rail Networks and Railways

Belgium's First Railways

Unlike the United Kingdom, where early railways had been developed by the private sector, the state took the initiative in the development of railways in Belgium, partly out of the fear that large banks, like the Société Générale de Belgique could develop a monopoly in the industry. Considering that the railways would be a major economic resource and a full national network would be necessary, the Belgian government was unusual at the time for planning a national network in advance before any was built.

At first, only one line was studied (the line between Antwerp and the Prussian border). However, the project quickly evolved:

• Instead of a direct line, the Antwerp - Cologne line was rerouted through Mechelen (where a short stub line to Brussels could be built), Leuven, Liège and Verviers. This itinerary was longer and more complicated but it would be more profitable and generate more traffic,
• Another line, starting at Mechelen, would reach Dendermonde, Ghent, Bruges and Ostend, granting a safe access to the sea (since the Dutch were able to blockade the Scheldt, cutting Antwerp away from the sea).
• A southbound line would link Brussels and Mons, an industrial town at the heart of the Sillon industriel, before crossing the French border (near Quiévrain), where a connecting line could reach Valenciennes, in northern France.

In 1834, the Belgian government approved a plan to build a railway between Mons, and the port of Antwerp via Brussels at a cost of 150 million Belgian francs. The first stretch of the Belgian railway network, between northern Brussels and Mechelen, it was completed in 1835 and was the first steam passenger railway in continental Europe. The line between Liège and Ostend meant that the country had a full rail network planned nearly from the outset. By 1836, the line to Antwerp had been completed and by 1843 the two main lines (which formed a rough north-south/east-west cross) had been finished while two other mainlines (Ghent - Kortrijk - Mouscron - Tournai (with an international line linking Mouscron with Lille) - Braine-le-Comte (on the Brussels - Mons line) - Manage (near La Louvière) - Charleroi - Namur) were added to this network and completed by 1843. In 1843, each provincial capital (save Arlon and Hasselt) had a railway station.

Early Belgian railways were heavily influenced by British designs, and British technology and engineers were extremely important. The engineer George Stephenson travelled on the first train between Brussels-Mechelen in 1835, and his company provided the first three locomotives (based on the Rocket design) used on the line. The rapid expansion of the Belgian railways in the 1830s was one of the factors allowing Belgium to recover from an economic recession which it had experienced since the revolution and served as a major force in the Belgian Industrial Revolution.