Definitely the most comfortable trainset on NMBS but can get way overcrowded. The reason gent looks run down is because its undergoing massive construction. 4th busiest station in belgium cant just shut down, so they work from platform to playform
Yes, Antwerpen Centraal is also one of my favorite European railway stations together with St. Pancras and Milano Centrale. It's just stunning and also an engineering marvel.
It would have been much smarter and considerate to first renovate the station and put customers first instead of building that stupid diamond office building next to the station.
worse, just look up at the light fixtures in the new portion, they aren't even cut out correctly, you can see it's a hatchetjob the new floors are fine but it doesn't make up for the many many mistakes, (like benches that are inches from the ground, concrete that looks like it was poured by 6 different corporations who didn't know of eachother, constant changes but never with any realy evidence of improvement
They are really nice trains for a cross-country journey in a weekend or on a cloudy holiday at 1pm. The moment when one minute earlier or later doesn't really matter and travellers volumes are modest. They are really not made for huge commuter volumes at rush hour. Only two small doors at the end of each carriage. Boarding and unboarding can take quite long... (oh and the electro-engines make a quite enjoyable sound when picking up speed 🙂)
Another fantastic video on the channel! Somehow, you manage to take these ubiquitous, less spectacular, train routes, and make great content out of them. Flot film, Simon!
I took that kind of train A LOT of time back then, and soon, I will drive it in a simulator. And when I'm ready, I will drive one for real. Amazing video, I also love Antwerpen Centraal.
this is (a part of) the comute i take to college every week, the trains are some of my favorites the belgian rail has to offer, very confratable and usually quite clean. but at 11:00 you do say "less busy services" but especially on sunday evening between Antwerp and Gent the 12 cars are needed and usually quite packed with college and university students making their commute. also also, there are a couple more power outlets to the left and right of the doors to the passenger compartments (on the side of the seats) hidden on the wall above the luggage racks. nice video btw! :D
That's why in some trains there's a panel saying at which halt it will stop. Also if your going for france the conductor will always say that if your wanna go to [place] or [other place] it's in the other wagons.
Happened to me once. The announcements are not consistent. Its Flemish always plus sometimes in French and English. There's always chaos. Plus sometimes, the connecting train to Lille is not attached and people have to change platforms. This adds to the confusion.
Gent is keeping the first part of the station original, to keep it as heritage. that being sayd, i think they could do with fixing it up to its original state, instead of just a quick paintjob now and then
So I know this line very well as it was the line I had to take for my higher education and I live near the line in Gent. Small fact about Antwerpen Centraal it hall was used to represent the main station of Brussels in the Aghata Christie Poirot television series staring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot
Gent is the fifth largest city in Belgium. It's just that Liège and Charleroi have their city and thus statistics cut up like Brussels. Which means the population numbers you find online are only talking about the city center, not their suburbs. Liège and Charleroi are only a tad bit smaller than Antwerp.
@@tjoeker680 No Liège is rather large, but definitely smaller than Antwerp. Charleroi and Ghent are more similar; although Gent is a bit more urban in the core, while Charleroi is a typical more suburban style industrial city.
Yeah but the journeys these go on are generally also much shorter, as the IC3 is often used on 3-4 hour journeys, whereas the AM96's work seems to be largely trips below 2 hours in length.
Ghent, the 4th largest city in Belgium? Is it not number 3, after Brussels and Antwerp? In population that is. Probably depends on the exact definition of largest city.
Wait until you get those days where you have 45min of delay. Even had a day where all trains were cancelled and was stuck in at the station, late at night, 50km from home, no taxis or anything. Fast forward, got my driving's license and now get to work 30 min faster. Screw the NMBS
Typical belgian whiner, probably flemish as well, who doesn't understand the railway structure or any of it's workings. Nmbs is a third party user and is dependant and has no control over what Infrabel does. Nmbs is not the only infrastructure (Infrabel) user. There are many goods trains companies too, and they also have to run their trains and break down in front of other trains. A major problem is the number of trains we have running belgian tracks. People always like to compare with Japan for example, In Japan they daily have 800 trains for 27000km, in Belgium it's 3600 trains for 3200km of tracks. That's over 40 times the volume of Japan's railway. If you want the same amount of punctuality as Japan, you will have to content with 100 trains per day in Belgium instead of 3600 per day. Belgians tracks are oversaturated, but politicians always want more trains, idiots. More than half the delays are caused by travelers themselves, for example there is more than 1 door on a train for boarding or people running the tracks which is out of Nmbs control, agressions against the train managers, etc. Faulty stops signs or track switches in an Infrabel problem, not Nmbs. Agreed, Nmbs can always improve and take more efforts with getting newer material so less breakdowns can occur, and maybe start treating their employees better. There is a world of difference in that regards compared to Ns for example. Also being a political oriented company doesn't help either, many at the burocratic level have no inkling of how to run trains. And with your car, start your gps and you will very often be later than announced or stuck in traffic on a daily.
The Low German G is perhaps the most variably-pronounced consonant I know of. Depending on locality, it can be aspirated through an h sound to virtual silence. I spent 18 years in Belgium, am a quarter Belgian, and somewhere in my childhood picked up sufficient Flemish to speak it functionally without ever having studied it! Flemish and Dutch are about 100 years apart.
In local dialect and generally in the Western Belgian accent it's indeed more like "Hent". In Standard Dutch it's a soft g, similar to a "ch" but just a bit harder
The paid toilets have benefits as they are mostly ran by single elderly women who want to make a bit of extra money on top of their pension. And if they do the job right they will clean the toilet immediately after someone has visited it. I as a Belgian gladly pay a few cents to make sure I get a clean toilet. 😉✌
I'm not gonna lie I sometimes just walk on trains that don't leave for a long time still and use their toilet if I really gotta go at a station. The stress of it making me end up in Brussels makes me shit faster.
