2023-05-14 07:38:00
The project to run a steam train on the oldest railway line in continental Europe, Brussels-Malines (1835), supported by the Train World museum and the SNCB, has been abandoned, according to a response from the Minister of Mobility, Georges Gilkinet (Ecolo), to a parliamentary question.
The file turned out to be too complex to implement.
“We are in discussions with the federal government and the railway safety services to plan a route for this steam train on the route of the first Belgian railway line Mechelen-Brussels”, indicated Jean-Claude Fontinoy, president of the CA of the SNCB, in October 2019. The hope was to concretize the project as early as 2020. It was planned to use the gleaming steam locomotive “29013”.
But the project has since fallen through. “Train World and SNCB no longer have the ambition to run a steam train,” said Mr Gilkinet in response to a written question from Open VLD MP Marianne Verhaert.
During the discussions, it appeared “how complicated it would be to run these steam trains”, confirms a spokesperson for the SNCB. “Certainly if we want to take into account the ETCS regulations”.
ETCS (for “European Train Control System”) is a standardized European rail safety system, a kind of “cruise control” for trains. Although steam locomotive 29013 is well equipped with the TBL1+ (equipment which reproduces in the driver’s cab the appearance of the signals installed along the track) as well as communication equipment with the signaling cabins, it is not equipped with of the ETCS.
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