… to the railway museum at Schaerbeek today, after several years of trying.
I’ve usually never had the time, had too many other things to do or (on at least one occasion) been too tired to carry on to the station, even though it’s been three years since it opened and I lived about 20 miles away on a direct railway line for a year of that time.
Mind you, I was almost too tired to make it there today.
I don’t recall too much about last night except that it was another disturbed night. I’d fallen asleep listening to a couple of radio programmes and after I’d awoken to switch off the laptop I couldn’t go back to sleep again for ages.
And then it was another “mobile” night, with me sitting bolt upright at 06:00 as something made a noise in the room.
Nevertheless, I’d been on my travels, even though I don’t remember too much about them. It involved a swimming pool somewhere and the changing rooms, instead of being individual cubicles, were cubicles for a dozen or so people. And in our cubicle was a little girl of about 3 or 4 who took great delight in telling us – and showing us too – how she folded up her cozzy when she was ready to leave. From there I went outside to do back home and was looking for the road signs. Sure enough, there was not one, but two road signs pointing in different directions to – was is Cemaes or Caersws? Can’t remember now. That had completely confused but on waking up I could still see them. One was black-on-white and the other was white-on-green so it was obvious that one was via the motorway and the other was via the normal roads. But why I couldn’t work that out in a nocturnal ramble was a mystery to me.
We had the usual morning performance and once I’d settled down, I set off for the station and bought a day return ticket to Brussels.
And one thing that I didn’t know until this morning was that there’s a direct train from Leuven to Waterloo that goes through Bruxelles Schuman instead of one of the main stations. And seeing as I wanted to go to Schuman that would save an awful lot of messing around.
I arrived at the station at 09:50 and the train was due to depart at 09:52 which was perfect timing, even if it wasn’t planned. And I don’t recall ever having travelled on one of this type of train before.
It’s an AM (for automotrice, or railcar) 86, one of 50-odd introduced between 1986 and 1991 and the class has been progressively modernised since 2012. Very comfortable and a smooth ride, apart from the tight curve at Haren.
It didn’t take long to arrive at the Bank, and I shall remember this train for the future. It will come in handy.
Once I was there I picked up my bank card, only to find that they hadn’t sent me the code to operate it. So we aren’t all that further forward. I also managed to complete the change of address, seeing as the guy who manages the counters was engaged elsewhere. But cancelling the standing order for Caliburn’s parking wasn’t so easy. I need to do that next month.
Negotiating the new redesigned Schuman station isn’t all that easy so I was lucky that the 10:55 train was late. But it had a good toilet which was just as well, even if I did have to queue for a while to use it.
With it being late I missed my connection at Bruxelles Nord for Schaerbeek station, but with it being on the main line out to the east of the city there was another train due in 10 minutes – the service S6 from Denderleeuw.
And much to my surprise, that one, a Siemens Desiro AM 08 pulled in 4 minutes early. You can see that we are nowhere near the UK, can’t you?
This one terminated at Schaerbeek and there were only a handful of people travelling on it so I had a carriage pretty much to myself.
Schaerbeek Station is really beautiful, a credit to the architect and the builders, just like many of the public buildings in Schaerbeek which reflect just how wealthy the commune was 150 years ago.
Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous reincarnations from many years ago will recall the tour that we had of the magnificent Schaerbeek Town Hall.
But times have changed over the last 75 years and it’s now along with Molenbeek and St-Josse one of the poorest communes in the city.
The railway museum was comparatively expensive to visit. I remarked to the cashier that I only wanted to visit the museum, not to buy a train. And there wasn’t all that much stuff that interests me.
Mind you, any railway museum would be considered a total disappointment by anyone who had visited the Canadian railway museum near Montreal. And despite my comments I managed to stay here for a good three hours and when I’ve sorted out the photographs I’ll give you the conducted tour.
Back on the station, my train to Leuven was due to depart imminently from platform 12 so I dashed all the way down there, only to be met by a swarm of people flooding back the other way.
Had I missed it? Not at all. It was a change of platform so I had to dash all the way back again.
And you can see what I mean about the railway station here at Schaerbeek. Probably 18 platforms, of which only 4 seem to be in use and even those are overgrown with weeds and fenced off where they are crumbling. Its former glory has long-gone.
In Leuven I bought a baguette and some tomatoes and a baguette and made myself a very late lunch. Following which I crashed out for a good hour and a half.
I’d been on my last legs going around that museum. I’d even crashed out for a couple of minutes in the gentlemen’s rest room and been caught unawares, not by an automatic flush toilet but by an automatic timer that cuts out the lights.
Later I had a shower and then went to meet Alison.
We had a really good chat and a good meal at our favourite Mexican restaurant where we were serenaded by a group of street musicians.
Not exactly the Ritz and the Palm Court Orchestra, but at least it’s entertainment.
We followed our meal by a walk out to St Pieters hospital that we had visited yesterday. Alison was interested to see the plans for the forthcoming redevelopment of the site. She told me that the site had been intended for the French community but the construction of the building was followed almost immediately by the language schism. The French decamped to Louvain-la-Neuve and never took up their option on the building.
And then back up to town for a coffee.
Now I really am going to crash out. I have a long day to travel back home tomorrow.
