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News
Keeping TRAXX On Belgium's New Locomotives
| | SNCB 2812 (Traxx E186-204) passing through Antwerpen Berchem towards the docks. Steve Ollive |
This year’s holiday involving a group of Society members was a return to Belgium, again based at the IBIS Hotel Gare du Midi in Brussels. Arriving from fairly far flung parts of Europe (two participants came in from Germany!) we enjoyed a week of good trains, good company, good food and, being Belgium, good beer, or perhaps that really ought to be spelled, bier. The intention of the week was to complete riding over every passenger route in the country and we so nearly succeeded – but one little branch line from Libramont to Bastogne Nord eluded us – line closed for engineering work, bus replacement in operation. Ah well, that’s an excuse to return in a few years time.
| | | CFL 1105 outside Luxembourg depot. Steve Ollive | |
| | | | | CFL 1802, 1805 and 1817 inside the half-roundhouse of Luxembourg depot. Steve Ollive |
| | | CFL 3005 and a rake of Double-Deck stock stabled at the back of Luxembourg depot. Steve Ollive | |
| | | | | CFL 305 (ex Arecelor Mittal) stabled at Rodange. Steve Ollive |
| | | | | CFL Driving Trailer 086 (50 82 86-70 086) at head of train at Luxembourg City station. Steve Ollive |
Our first day out was our now customary Sunday jaunt to Luxembourg where we were welcomed to visit the depot in Luxembourg City, noticing that it is being extended by quite a margin – possible, I guess that they’re building a new depot alongside the old one which will close in due course. The roundhouse contained some heritage stock as well as currently used locos, we saw some of the Corail coaches CFL have acquired, and we discovered that the Cl.3000 Alsthom locos which were at the centre of a railway diplomatic dust up a few years ago are now back in use in Luxembourg, and indeed we found a few of them at the helm of trains operated with the new double deck stock. The TRAXX Cl.4000 locomotives were also out and about in numbers, working trains going further afield. Whilst on the warpath we travelled a few more of Luxembourg’s passenger lines – having long enough in one village for the hardier travellers to venture into a bar for a drink – Luxembourg, it seems, hasn’t yet adopted a smoking ban in pubs..!
Monday was the chance to tick off some new track mileage with the Oudenarde to Burst line and Brugge to Knokke. We also took the opportunity to do what we missed last time, and that was a wander down the road from Zeebrugge Strand to see what Cl.77s were parked up in the yard – only 4 as it happened! But at least the train service to Strand was running hourly instead of less frequently as we discovered last time, although we were the only customers on the train when it left for Brugge. We also ticked off the last bit of the Zeebrugge and Oostende tram route to Knokke. On our return to base camp we had just enough time to take a diversion from Gent to see what was on Merelbeke Depot.
| | | Oostende tram 6013 stabled outside the depot at Knokke. Steve Ollive | |
| | | | | SNCB 223 at Zebrugge Strand, with Richard Morris waiting to join the train. Steve Ollive |
| | | | | Replica of an original Belgium locomotive L’Elephant inside the museum at Mechelen Works. Steve Ollive |
Tuesday was special day number 1 as we were given permission to visit Mechelen Works, where most of the refurbishment, repainting and rebuilding projects on SNCB’s rolling stock is undertaken. But not before we managed to sneak two more bits of new track in! Enghein to Gerrardsbergen and from there to Aalst were completed on our slightly circuitous way from Brussels to Mechelen. There we met up with Terry Lea, an old (okay, less of the old) friend of a number of us in the Society, who had made the contact with Mechelen on our behalf. We were introduced to our guide for the visit and were taken on a fact finding mission right around all the buildings where work is being undertaken. Cl. AM66 two car units being reworked and smartened up for City Rail – the Brussels commuter services essentially, although as we were to discover during the week, City Rail units are capable of roaming quite a long way from Brussels. We certainly found some in Charleroi and Namur, for example. Also in Mechelen were a variety of other AM75, AM79, AM80/83, AM96 units all undergoing repair and refurbishment – a small preview of things to come was an AM75 in the off white with blue and red lining out colours, replacing the all over red. Mechelen has a reputation for fixing anything – nothing is withdrawn unless it really is beyond all hope of repair. Every mis-shapen EMU or DMU coach is a challenge, or is it ‘an opportunity’, and it is a challenge to which the workforce will rise to rebuild a vehicle back to the shape the designers intended. At the end of the visit we were invited to sit along with the workforce in the canteen to take lunch – a hearty meat and veg dish with some fruit to follow up. After lunch we were invited to the museum which occupies a building at the corner of the works and which catalogues the history of railways in Belgium. Artefacts from the very early days right up to the modern day were included in the exhibition, and our host in the museum enthusiastically spoke about all the exhibits on show. All too soon our time was done and we bade farewell to our guides and hosts at Mechelen.
| | | SNCF 36007, 36030 and 36022 passing through Antwerpen Berchem towards the docks. Steve Ollive | |
Later in the afternoon we made our way to Antwerpen Berchem for a train watching (and tram watching for those with binoculars!) session. This was an opportunity to see SNCB’s class of 2009, the TRAXX Cl.E186s, or Cl.28’s in SNCB terms, working in and out of Antwerpen Noord on freight services. The E186s are built in Germany (Siemens power and running gear) and are multi-voltage pan-European locomotives – they can be found just about anywhere on the European mainland. The afore mentioned travellers in from Germany reported finding several SNCB examples roaming around Köln. Time to find some food and so we ventured into the centre of Antwerpen, gaining our first sight of Antwerpen Centraal station without any of the scaffolding which has liberally adorned it on most of our previous visits. The work to create two levels of platforms below the train shed and to completely restore the old station has been completed. Has it been worth all the time and effort spent to complete the project!? – you bet it has – wow! It looks absolutely tremendous, and all the more remarkable that the work has been undertaken underneath without disturbing the old (almost Barlow-esque) train shed. As is our custom in Anterwerpen, dinner was taken at the Biffo Chiasso restaurant (the Argentinian steak house) just across the square from Antwerpen Centraal. Great stuff!
| | Part of the inside of the original train shed of Antwerpen Centraal station viewed from one of the new lower levels. Steve Ollive |
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| | Looking down through the centre of Antwerpen Centraal station to the lowest level through platforms. Steve Ollive |
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| | | SNCB 963 (Brussels City Rail) at Arlon. Steve Ollive | |
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| | | Preserved CFL 1603 inside Stockem depot. Steve Ollive | |
| | | | | SNCB 5212 outside Stockem depot. Steve Ollive |
Wednesday was to be the day when we travelled the Libramont to Bastogne Nord line only to discover we couldn’t. The next item on Wednesday’s agenda was to peer over the fence into Stockem Depot but to do this we needed to pick a train which stops at Viville – and there aren’t many of these so time at Libramont to have a coffee, catch up on a crossword or two, or take a mid morning nap – and not spot Archie sneaking round the station pointing his camera towards unsuspecting snoozers! At Stockem we were able to see rolling stock outside the sheds and, using binoculars identify some of the stock inside. Mostly withdrawn items were stabled here pending decisions on what to do with them. Later we picked up another new route. Having made our way to Arlon we then made our way to Bertrix (line was there before but with no passenger service on it) before heading up to Dinant and on to Namur and out to Ronet to see what we could see at the depot there. We saw most of what was on shed but amazingly the site was completely devoid of any humans so we did not venture to wander too far without permission. Making our way on from Ronet to Charleroi we ventured back to Brussels for dinner in the evening.
| | | STIB departmental vehicle Windhofer 1 inside the new Haren depot. Steve Ollive | |
| | | | | STIB 3019 inside the new Haren depot. Steve Ollive |
| | | STIB 2011 under maintenance in Elsene / Ixelle depot. Steve Ollive | |
| | | | | STIB 7160 inside Elsene / Ixelle depot. Steve Ollive |
Thursday was special day no.2 when through a contact made by Barry Key, we were invited to spend the day visiting the Brussels tram system and its depots. Our guide Tom Bouckaert Director of Internal Communications, STIB found us at our hotel and took us to Haren depot, a brand new facility which will replace two or three older depots when it is fully up and running. Brussels is taking delivery of new 7 section trams, somewhat longer than the single car or older two and three section trams they are replacing, so a new depot was needed, not just to park them, but to maintain them as they’re a bit more technically, electrically and electronically advanced than the older units! Haren is also home to the tram track repair units and we saw two of these being prepared for a maintenance hit on some track during the night closure that evening. We visited the control room from where a large portion of the tram system will be managed when it (the control room) is fully up and running, and we visited the extensive training facility there which will train new drivers on all types of tram, as well as training employees in all the other aspects of tram operation in the city.
| | | Tour party up on the gantry having the mechanics of a tram explained to them by the depot manager in Elsene / Ixelle depot. Steve Ollive | |
| | | | | STIB 7812 inside the new Haren depot. Steve Ollive |
The visit was of benefit not only to us to see the hub of Brussels trams but to our hosts who, it transpired, used our visit as a trial run for the high profile visit of the STIB management the following day to formally open the new facility. We were most honoured, and very content, to be the guinea pigs! As with Tuesday the first part of the day ended with lunch in the staff canteen. Later we went to Elsene Depot, an older facility to see maintenance work in progress on all variants of tram currently in use in Brussels. Our guide there made comment about being able to fit less trams into the depot with the newer variants being much longer than the older types. Here we ended a most informative and enjoyable visit to a different type of railway operation. Some of the party then made its way out to Brussels Nord for the evening rush hour. Pencils sharpened this exercise is two hours of completely non stop writing! The day ended with a re-visit to a good quality Chinese restaurant in the Nord area for dinner before making our way back to the hotel.
| | | | | SNCB 5705 passing through Charleroi Sud heading for Monceau yard. Steve Ollive |
Friday was the new Thursday, in that what we had originally planned to do on Thursday we did, instead, on Friday. This allowed the remaining new passenger routes to be covered, including Manage to La Louviere Sud and the cross border link from Charleroi to Jeumont in France – our ticket allowed us to do this so long as we didn’t venture any further than Jeumont! We had intended to spend some time train watching in Charleroi but as there was very little likely to be there that we hadn’t already seen we travelled out to Tournai and Mons before heading back to Bruxelles.
On the last day, Saturday we ventured a little further afield capturing some cross border routes heading first to Aachen in Germany, and from there to Heerlen in Holland before making our way to Maastricht and then getting the SNCB service from there back to Liege. Now here is another station where the massive rebuilding project has been completed since our last visit. The whole station has moved a 100 meters or so away from the bank which neatly allows stopping inter city trains to have a run at the bank thus almost negating the need for banking assistance. Two of the trusty Cl.22s were still in residence to provide such, just in case it was needed! Whilst in Liege we took the chance to go out to Kinkempois Depot to see what was there. Quite a few locomotives as it happened. As this was our last night together as a party we ventured into the centre of Brussels to a restaurant we have used before for a last night celebration meal.
| | | DB 362-915-1 at Aachen Hauptbahnhof. Steve Ollive | |
| | | | | DB 643-224 with local Euregio branding arriving at Aachen Hauptbahnhof. Steve Ollive |
| | | Veolia 652 stabled at Heerlen. Steve Ollive | |
| | | | | SNCB 7768 stabled at Kinkempois depot. Steve Ollive |
And so the holiday came to its conclusion. The very grateful thanks, then, of the participants are due to Steve Ollive and Malcolm Riley for all the organisational effort in arranging the trip, to Terry Lea and Barry Key for arranging the special visits – without their contacts neither trip would have happened, and to the authorities at Mechelen Works and STIB (Brussels Trams) and Tom Bouckaert in particular, for their very kind hospitality and generosity to us during our visits to their sites.
| | | SNCB 9156 and 9158 stabled at Kinkempois depot. Steve Ollive | |
| | | | | SNCB 2759 fitted with a coupling for Multiple working with M6 Coaching Stock stabled at Kinkempois depot. Steve Ollive |
| | | A view of the inside of the train shed of the new Liege Guillemins station. Steve Ollive | |
| | | | | A view of the yet to be completed external area of the new Liege Guillemins station. Steve Ollive |
Next year we’re planning on a visit to Holland. Look out in the January 2010 RO for further details.
| | SNCB 962, newly refurbished for Brussels City Rail with the RCTS tour party outside Mechelen Works. Steve Ollive |
15/09/09
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