Around Antwerp Station
I took these pictures of the magnificent Antwerp station in the evening light.
I certainly haven’t seen a better station in Belgium.
Walloonacy
In Brexit – Signalling Implications For The UK, I quoted this from an article on Rail Engineer.
The endless committees to discuss and agree how the standards will be implemented do not get in the way. Whilst not suitable for main line usage (at least in the foreseeable future), there could be suburban routes around cities (for example Merseyrail) that could benefit from CBTC deployment.
So when I read articles like this one on the BBC, which is entitled Ceta talks: EU vows to unblock Canada trade deal, I do wonder if the EU has got its decision-making right.
Allowing the Walloons to block the trade deal with Canada, is a bit like giving a handful of MPs, the right to block new standards on the making of sausages.
When we leave, which is something I don’t want, the EU must surely reform itself to make it a more efficient and sensible organisation.
Do The English, Scots And Welsh Work Better Together Than The Belgians, Dutch And Germans?
If we take these two groups of three countries, they all have different railway companies, but do they illustrate a problem in the relations between various EU countries.
I know my experience of travelling between these six countries is mainly on the trains, but to travel between England, Scotland and Wales by train, is a lot easier than travelling between Belgium and The Netherlands and the Netherlands and Germany is full of little difficulties.
Strangely if you add France into the mix, that is generally as easy as the three home nations.
Judging by my experience in Europe, there are many ways that the Scots and Welsh could make the English unwelcome. But they don’t, except for the Seniors Bus Pass, although the same Senior Railcard is valid everywhere in the UK.
I know we’re all part of the same country, but I think where something has to be agreed across a border, we generally find a solution that is acceptable enough!
In the important area of rail ticketing, there seems little agreement on common standards between Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany.
Imagine how difficult it would be if ScotRail had different ticketing rules to say Virgin.
Surely, if Europe can’t get its act together in something like rail ticketing, how can it get something important like dealing with migrants working?
I’m Off To The Hague Today
Is there any other train journey between two capitals in the world, that is more difficult now than it was six or seven years ago?
When I first did this trip, I was able to buy a Eurostar ticket from London to Any Dutch Station, as many visitors to The Netherlands did.
But when Fyra; the high-speed train started, this was not possible any more. I couldn’t even get to the Dutch capital without a second change.
Today, I’ve bought a Eurostar ticket to any Belgian Station and will go to Antwerp for a spot of lunch, before I buy a ticket to Den Haag Laan van Nieuwe Oost Indie, so that I avoid all the hassle of using Dutch local ticketing, which will mean buying an Oyster-style card.
I will then use Shanks’s Pony to get to my final destination.
If that is progress, you can stick it up your backside.
Suppose to go between London and Edinburgh, you had to change trains at Newcastle or Berwick! Even the most rabid of Scottish Independence advocates, would never want a service like that between Scotland and England!
Also, if I was going to most important stations in Switzerland, I can buy one ticket from London.
Surely, this should apply to all major cities in Europe, that are within say five or six hours from London.
Going the other way, I could buy a ticket from say Paris direct to virtually anywhere in the UK.
Liège-Guillemins Station
As I wandered my way back to Brussels for the Eurostar, I just had to stop of at Liège-Guillemins station and take some pictures.
Is there another station like it in the world? This Google Map shows the layout.
It is a design by Santiago Calatrava. Let’s hope that the Belgians did a good job on building this station. In 2007, I saw some of his buildings in Valencia and the concrete hadn’t worn well!
The totally new station cost €312million, which compares with £500million for the restoration and extension of Kings Cross station. Compare these figures with the reported £44million for the restoration of Manchester Victoria station, the complete reconstruction of Reading and Birmingham New Street stations.
Direct comparisons are difficult, but I cam’t help feeling, that in terms of cost, Manchester Victoria station is out of line with the others. It just shows that god design is often cheaper than bad.
One difference between the British projects and Liège-Guillemins station, is that the British ones are or were updating of existing stations, whereas the Belgian one was a new station built a short distance away.
Perhaps in some ways, to combine rebuilding with moving the station is a better plan, as both Reading and Birmingham New Street could be thought expensive compared to Liège-Guillemins.
So with all the problems there have been during the rebuilding of London Bridge station, would it have been better to have put the rail lines through in an optimal manner for operational purposes and perhaps created a new station further South.
London Bridge station was and still is a difficult problem, but hopefully it’ll be spot on when it opens.
Through The Ardennes
I hadn’t thought I’d see much, but the route through the Ardennes was rather pretty.
The train was a single-decker, as the pictures show.
The Slow Way From Wuppertal To Brussels
I had intended to get some food in Wuppertal after riding the Schwebebahn, but the town centre wasn’t very visitor friendly, due to the massive building works between the two railways. So after the Schwebebahn, I decided to get the first train to Cologne, which just happened to be an ICE.
At Cologne, I decidd it would be a good idea to take a series of slow regional trains to Brussels.
I went via Aachen and Liege, taking pictures along the way. Some like
A Station With An Attached Chapel And Hotel
The station at Liège-Guillemins
have their own posts, but others are in this gallery.
Note.
- For most of the journey, I was sitting in the top deck of the trains.
- There was nearly a serious incident in the ICE. The lobby has no grab handles and a guy about my age fell over as the train lurched. Even a much younger man didn’t like it. Health and Safety would have changed the design in the UK.
- I particularly liked the toilet lock at Aachen. You just put fifty cents in the slot and opened the door in the normal way. It wouldn’t have hindered anybody, who could walk through a normal door.
- Except for the Wuppertal to Cologne section on the ICE, it wasn’t crowded.It was a journey I’d recommend, if you have plenty of time to catch a Eurostar out of Brussels.
It was a journey I’d recommend, if you have plenty of time to catch a Eurostar out of Brussels, as Colgne, Aachen and Liege are all places to get a drink and a snack.
London To Kassel
When I left the UK, my aims were to travel to Kassel, Karlsruhe and Strasbourg and a few other cities, I’d not visited before as a tourist.
I was also intending to see and ride on some of the tram-trains that seem to be used in the area.
I started my journey on a 73 bus and finished it in a taxi. More on why I used a dreaded taxi later.
These pictures tell the story.
In some ways it was an easy but boring journey, which because of the extremely dull weather past Liege there wasn’t much to see.
Personally, I can’t wait for a direct London to Frankfurt train, which would make trips like this so much easier.
Another Famous Belgian
Read this article on the BBC web site, entitled Adrian Carton de Wiart: The unkillable soldier. His Wikipedia article says this.
He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War; was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a POW camp; and bit off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them. Describing his experiences in World War I, he wrote, “Frankly I had enjoyed the war.”
He eventually died peacefully at 83.
Slow High Speed Rail
The Dutch and the Belgians have abandoned their new Fyra high-speed trains and are replacing them with coaches hauled by TRAXX locomotives as is reported here.
The Fyra was supposed to run at 250 kph, but they have proved to be very unreliable. On the other hand the TRAXX-hauled coaches are probably limited to about 200 kph. So they will have a high-speed line called HSL-Zuid, which has been designed for up to 300 kph, with trains on it running at well below that speed.
It’s a bit like putting the the Class 90s and the Mk 3 coaches you get between London and Norwich, on the East or West Coast Main Line. Some of course, used to work there twenty years ago, so they are a bit clapped, but they are generally more reliable than Fyra, which has been nicknamed the ALDI-trein
In fact here’s an idea!
I’m sure we’ve got some old Class 90s and a few rakes of coaches, we could lend to the Dutch and the Belgians. But there are various problems in that Continental trains are bigger than ours and I don’t think they’d fit the platforms. They also wouldn’t be able to work all the high-speed line as some parts and the rest of the Netherlands doesn’t use 25kV like the UK and most of Europe.
It would appear the Dutch and the Belgians, with the help of a basket case of an Italian train maker, have dug themselves an enormous hole. Now they are going to get themselves out of trouble, using an engine built in Germany by a Canadian company.
I wonder how many civil servants and politicians have been fired because of this fiasco?
We may have done a few things wrong with the trains in the last fifty or so years, but we’ve never created anything as bad as this!
The Anonymous Widower 