The Belgian rail company NMBS has annouced that it is to increase its number of services by 2%. The increase in the number of rail services will be implemented in 2 phases, the first of which will take effect from 14 December. In the area in and around Brussels there will be more trains on the suburban S-Train network. There will also be more intercity services between Brussels and Liège, Leuven and Charleroi.
At meeting of the Federal Parliament’s Transport Select Committee, NMBS’ Koen Kerckaert said that most of the additional services will run at weekends at late in the evening on weekdays. For example, from 14 December there will be extra late evening services between Brussels and Antwerp on Friday and Saturday evenings. This will offer people that have been on an evening out the choice of taking the train home.
Additional suburban services to and from stations within a 30km-radius of Brussels will run on line S1 (Brussels-Mechelen) and S2 (Braine-le-Comte-Brussels-Leuven). Also from 14 December, the number of services on line S4 (Aalst to Brussels-Luxembourg) will double on weekdays as will the number of S7 services between Halle and Vilvoorde via Delta. There will also be more S3 and S5 services and more P-Train commuter services between Dendermonde and Brussels.
More intercity services at the weekend
In addition to an increase in suburban services NMBS also intends to increase the number of intercity services that run at the weekend.
The number of IC services between Brussels and Charleroi and Brussels and Liège will increase from 1 to 2 per hour. The new IC services between Brussels and Liège will also serve Brussels Airport at Zaventem (Flemish Brabant).
The number of intercity services between Leuven (Flemish Brabant) and Brussels will also increase from 2 to 3 per hour. All the changes have already been added to NMBS’ online route planner .