 |
|
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1926 |
| Headquarters | Brussels, Belgium |
| Industry | Rail Transport |
| Products | Rail Transport |
| Revenue | ▲ € 3.010 billion (2005) |
| Operating income | ▲ € 43,2 million (2005) |
| Net income | ▼ € -116 million (2005) |
| Employees | 37,865 (2005) |
| Subsidiaries | B-Cargo Publifer Syntigo and more |
| Website | http://www.b-rail.be/ |
| National Railway Company of Belgium | |||
| Operation | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure company | Infrabel | ||
| Statistics | |||
| Ridership | 206.5 million per year [1] | ||
| Passenger km | 9.9 billion per year [1] | ||
| Freight | ~60 million tons per year [2] | ||
| System length | |||
| Total | 3,374 kilometres (2,097 mi) [3] | ||
| Double track | 1,878 kilometres (1,167 mi) | ||
| Electrified | 3,002 kilometres (1,865 mi) [3] | ||
| Gauge | |||
| Main | 1,435 mm (4 ft 81⁄2 in) | ||
| High-speed | 1,435 mm (4 ft 81⁄2 in) | ||
| Electrification | |||
| 3000 V DC | Main network | ||
| 25 kV AC | High-speed lines, recent electrification | ||
| Features | |||
| No. stations | 546 [4] | ||
|
|||
The National Railway Company of Belgium, also known as 
Nationale Maatschappij der Belgische Spoorwegen (help·info) (or NMBS, Dutch) or Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Belges (or SNCB, French) is the Belgian national railway operator. It was created in 1926. The NMBS/SNCB is an autonomous government company. In 2005, the company was split up into three parts: Infrabel, which manages the railway infrastructure, network operations and network access, the public railway operator NMBS/SNCB itself to manage the freight (B-Cargo) and passenger services, and NMBS/SNCB-Holding, which owns both public companies and supervises the collaboration between them. Essentially, this was a move to facilitate future liberalisation of railway freight and passenger services in agreement with European regulations. Several freight operators have since received access permissions for the Belgian network.
In 2004 the NMBS/SNCB carried 178.4 million passengers a total of 8,676 million passenger-kilometres over a network of 3,536 kilometres (of which 2,950 km are electrified, mainly at 3000 V DC and 351 km at 25 kV 50 Hz AC).
Tickets are relatively cheap and service frequent, in part due to the high population density, and in part to large government subsidies. The NMBS/SNCB is permanently updating its rolling stock.
The network currently includes two high speed lines suitable for 300 km/h (190 mph) traffic: HSL 1 runs from just south of Brussels to the French border, where it continues to Paris and Lille (and London beyond that), HSL 2 runs from Leuven to
See also
References
- ^ a b NMBS/SNCB (2008-05-29) (PDF), Jaarverslag 2007, Brussels: NMBS Public & Corporate Affairs (published July 2008), pp. 32, 46, http://www.b-rail.be/corporate/assets/corporatefiles/jaarverslag2007.pdf, retrieved on 2008-10-26 (Dutch language, not available in English - these numbers exclude DB ICE trains to/from Belgium)
- ^ Kerncijfers
- ^ a b Infrabel (2008-05-05), Benoit Gilson, ed. (PDF), Annual Report 2007, Brussels, pp. 6, http://ecms.infrabel.be/DMS/ds/en/4122328, retrieved on 2008-10-26
- ^ ""Lijst van NMBS-stations"" (in Dutch). http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_NMBS-stations. Retrieved on 2008-12-11.
External links
- Bueker.net - Map of the Belgian and Dutch rail networks.
- SNCB/NMBS website (note that the travel planner, when applied to a foreign country, e.g. the Netherlands, may recommend odd detours, due to the selection of train services in the database)
- List of train stations
- w:nl:Lijst van NMBS-stations
- Collection of Google Earth locations of SNCB/NMBS stations (Requires Google Earth software) from the Google Earth Community forum.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
