Why limit yourself to one media, when you can use two? Enjoy the best of both, go nuts.
Or, as the case maybe, slip across the street for a glass of Jupiler at the Le Cheval de Fer (The Iron Horse).
That was my call any way. I visited Schaarbeek/Schaerbeek at the end of March.
Restored railway station at Schaerbeek/Schaarbeek in Brussels, Belgium. Exposed with a Lumix LX7.
Schaerbeek is a large station in suburban Brussels. Out front is a tram terminus where modern Flexity trams gather between runs. The station building is a classic, and just recently restored. The railway themed pub is nearby and in sight of the station.
This bizarrely adorned tram was paused at the Schaerbeek tram terminus. Where was it going? I jumped on and went for a spin. An hour later I was at Lancaster. Didn’t look like Pennsylvania to me, but hey! (By the way, that’s Le Cheval de Fer to the right of the tram.) Lumix LX7 photo.
SNCB is the Belgian national railway and it runs a lot of trains. While most trains don’t stop at Schaerbeek, there’s no shortage of action. In just a few minutes, I’d caught a variety of equipment passing.
Since I had three cameras and sunlight, I made the most of my brief time at this railway nexus.
Before long, pictures exposed and beer consumed, I was rolling along through cobble stone streets on one of the aforementioned Flexity trams.
Schaerbeek/Schaarbeek station exposed on Provia 100F with a Canon EOS 3 fitted with 40mm pancake lens. Slide digitized with a Epson V600 flatbed scanner.Detail view of the station exposed with my Fujifilm X-T1 digital camera.Detail made with a Fujifilm X-T1 digital camera.At the north end of a station platform I exposed this classic view of a Class 27 SNCB electric leading a passenger train. exposed on Provia 100F with a Canon EOS 3 fitted with 40mm pancake lens. Slide digitized with a Epson V600 flatbed scanner.Trailing view exposed digitally using my Fujifilm X-T1 camera.Where are we again? Fujifilm X-T1 photo.Another Class 27, this viewed from under the old station canopies. Fuji X-T1 photo.
At Leige (Liège-Guillemins) I boarded an InterCity train for Brussels and glided along in comfort along perfectly maintained track. At Bruxelles-Nord/Brussel-Noord (French and Flemish names appear randomly applied to Brussels stations—so far as I can tell) I changed to another express, this one destined for Antwerp.
Gazing east from a westward SNCB InterCity train bound for Brussels. Lumix LX3 photo.
I was aiming for Antwerpen Noorderdokken, a location I explored in March, where freight trains access the port of Antwerp. Another change of trains at Antwerp Central brought me to this station. As I walked toward my desired photo angle, I noticed a dark wall of clouds rolling in off the North Sea. (It had been clear and cloudless at Liege!)
Yet, I managed to photograph six freights before the sun vanished—mission accomplished. Boarding my eighth train of the day, I aimed to ride around Antwerp and then back toward Brussels.
By the end of the day, I’d visited eight locations and traveled on ten trains. Not too shabby for the first day of my August visit to Belgium.
A French freight diesel leads a container train from the Port of Antwerp near Antwerpen Noorderdokken. Canon EOS 7D photo.Belgian Class 13 electrics crawl along with an empty freight train near Antwerpen Noorderdokken. Canon EOS 7D photo.SNCB class 28 electrics lead a train of tanks from the Port of Antwerpen. Canon EOS 7D.Dark clouds rolling off the North Sea signal the time to head back toward the station. Canon 7D photo.
Departing Antwerpen Noorderdokken on a local train, another SNCB passenger train was rolling along on an adjacent track. Lumix LX3 photo.Many SNCB passenger trains work with locomotives at both ends. Here a class 27 electric works the back of a train accelerating toward Antwerp Central. I’m on a local that will run around Antwerp on a different route. Lumix LX3.
