NMBS/SNCB Group

Type	Government-owned corporation
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 8+1⁄2 in)
High-speed	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in)
Electrification
3000 V DC	Main network
25 kV AC	High-speed lines, recent electrification
Features
No. stations	546 [4]
Map

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 Liège. HSL 3 will run from Liège to the German border near Aachen and HSL 4 will connect with HSL-Zuid in The Netherlands to allow services to run from Antwerp to Rotterdam. Both lines are equipped with ERTMS (ETCS level 2 + GSM-R, access and fall-back in level 1).

[edit] See also

• Rail transport in Belgium
• Transportation in Belgium
• List of SNCB/NMBS classes

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{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 2008-10-26  (Dutch language, not available in English - these numbers exclude DB ICE trains to/from Belgium)
2. ^ Kerncijfers
3. ^ ^{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 2008-10-26 
4. ^ ""Lijst van NMBS-stations"" (in Dutch). http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_NMBS-stations. Retrieved 2008-12-11. 

[edit] 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.