Colin Boocock first visited Belgium in 1957 and was interested to see electric locomotives that all looked the same but with a variety of class numbers! Here he explains why, and looks at a few later developments, too.
I have to thank the Eastleigh & District Engineering Society in the 1950s for its practice of organising annual long-weekend trips to the nearby continent. These enabled me, as an impecunious engineering apprentice, to afford occasional rail travel to destinations such as Paris and Brussels, and to begin to enjoy the fun of seeing how other countries’ railways did things differently from ours.
My second such outing was in October 1957. Our group assembled at London’s Victoria station to catch the boat train that connected with the Night Ferry sailing from Newhaven to Dieppe, though on the ship we second-class travellers sat in deck chairs for the crossing!
I recall having to get off the ship in the early hours at Dieppe and walk to the waiting train that was eventually bound for Brussels. As daylight came, the train was still in France, having reversed in Lille Flandres station where (I now realise) our French steam locomotive had been replaced by a Belgian one. The train included the Wagon-Lits sleeping cars off the ferry, comfortable vehicles in which more affluent passengers were travelling. We, travelling on railway second-class tickets, sat in French Railways compartments with green mock-leather bench seats that were not designed for a good night’s sleep, nor a comfortable day journey.
A long stop followed, out in the countryside at Baisieux station. This heralded the walk-through by the French passport and customs people who studied and stamped each and every passport and stared firmly at all members of our bleary-eyed party. Then the train dragged its way across a canal bridge and across the border, and we soon stopped in the small station at Blandain. Here the passport and customs checks were repeated, this time by Belgian officials. Eventually the train resumed its travels and arrived at Tournai station; that was where I first saw six-wheeled carriages with broken windows that were nonetheless carrying many passengers and hauled by an ancient-looking steam 4-4-2T. This was certainly a different world! Later in the morning we arrived at Brussels
