Classic route
Intercity
Antwerp → Brussels · Belgium
Intercity in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 45 km
- Fastest time
- 35 min
- Average speed
- 77 km/h
- Top speed
- 160 km/h
- Operator
- SNCB
- Train
- M6 double-deck
- Countries
- Belgium
- In service since
- 1836
- Runs
- every 10–15 min across services
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Traces the route of continental Europe’s first passenger railway of 1835 and ends under the vast domed railway cathedral of Antwerpen-Centraal.
This 35-minute hop rides the oldest main-line corridor on the European continent. Brussels to Mechelen opened in May 1835, the first steam railway outside Britain, and reached Antwerp the following year. Mechelen’s St Rumbold’s tower marks halfway, and the arrival is the great set piece: Antwerpen-Centraal, the gilded 1905 “railway cathedral”, where through trains dive to platforms stacked three levels deep since the 2007 tunnel opened. Double-deck ICs shuttle the corridor all day.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 206732 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 5 m from it
- Checked against the running timetable via ÖBB Scotty: our line sits 0.1 km from the shape of IC 3128
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Brussels North–South link
- Zenne and Dijle flatlands
- Mechelen’s St Rumbold’s tower
- Antwerpen-Centraal’s gilded hall
Read more on Wikipedia (in NL) ↗
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Planning this trip? Journey time & direct trains: Antwerp → Brussels · Brussels → Antwerp.