Last week it already became known that night trains would be available in the Brussels region until two in the morning. At a more detailed presentation Friday of the NMBS/SNCB global 2023-2026 transport plan, more details became known for the province of Flemish Brabant. Apart from more trains at weekends and on Friday and Saturday evenings, Flemish Brabant will also get a connection from Leuven to Charleroi airport. Also, Walloon Brabant and the Hainaut province will benefit from an increased offer.

Better connections to Charleroi Airport

That new IC connection from Leuven towards Charleroi-Central will start at the end of the year and will be available once an hour both on weekdays and at weekends. The train will also stop along the way in Heverlee, Ottignies, and Fleurus, among others. At Fleurus station, a smooth transfer to a bus from the Walloon public transport company TEC is promised to reach Charleroi airport. The frequency of the S61 Wavre-Jambes train, which offers a connection to the airport, will also be doubled on weekends.

But the big weekend changes are planned for December 2024 with a second hourly IC train between Liège, Leuven, and Brussels during weekends; Furthermore, there will also be a second hourly IC train between Leuven and Antwerp, and there will also be better connections from Mons and Charleroi to the capital and better frequencies on Saturdays on the Charleroi suburban network.

More local trains

Still from December 2024, additional late S-trains will be operated from Brussels and Antwerp on Friday and Saturday evenings: a train should depart from both cities after 1 am. Many of those S-trains also run through Flemish Brabant: from Brussels to Leuven, Diegem, Vilvoorde, Halle, Liedekerke, and Linkebeek, among others, and from Antwerp to Vilvoorde and Leuven, among others.

Then, in June 2025, NMBS/SNCB plans to expand the S4-train to twice an hour on weekdays. It will still run from Aalst to Brussels-Schuman, but no longer to Mechelen but to Louvain-la-Neuve. Mechelen does get a second S7 (Halle-Merode-Mechelen) per hour; that train replaces the S4 between Delta and Mechelen. And the S6-train Edingen-Geraardsbergen-Denderleeuw will also start running twice an hour on weekdays from June 2025.

A fourth phase of the transport plan will follow in December 2025. The S9 Leuven-Brussels-Schuman-Nivelles will then also start running on Saturdays. And the S5 Mechelen-Halle, which also stops in Vilvoorde, will then run a second time per hour on Saturdays and during school holidays.

Bottlenecks to be tackled

The plans have yet to get the green light from the Council of Ministers, and implementation also depends on recruitment and equipment deliveries, says the NMBS/SNCB. The company, for example, is still failing to run all trains from its timetable due to staff shortage. NMBS/SNCB still needs 800 people for various positions and is therefore launching a further recruitment campaign.

It has also been announced that Infrabel, the public company in charge of the railway network, has received the green light from the federal government to take out a 1 billion euros loan to accelerate investments that will upgrade the Belgian rail system.

Specifically, the money will go to projects to eliminate the number of bottlenecks on the rail network and modernize several train axes. These include the axis linking Brussels to the border of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, where journey times must be reduced, and the line between Ghent and Bruges, which connects the interior of the coast. There will also be investments in the ports of Antwerp, Ghent, and Brussels.