We explore the railways of northern Belgium from the De Panne tramway (De Lijn) at Ostend to high speed rail at Antwerp and Brussels. The traditional routes have been joined by a new high speed line that links the capital, Brussels, with Paris, London and Cologne. Amsterdam will soon be brought into this net. We see the various TGV derivatives which work this prestige service and plenty of other NMBS passenger trains as well: AM96s Class 11s,12s, 13s. The venerable Cockerill Co Cos of class 51 are not forgotten, see them on the road and at B-Cargo's state of the art depot at Antwerp Nord. Freight is everywhere! We follow the main route to Gent and then up to Antwerp and on to Roosendaal with a Benelux set. Back to Antwerp, where we take a trip to the docks hauling a pair of wagons loaded with German built combine harvesters bound for South America. Haulage courtesy of one of B-Cargo's new class 77 trip locomotives. On the quay we see paper from Austria being unloaded from OBB sliding wall vans in a rather novel way! Next we visit General Motors massive OPEL works. GM kindly let us film inside their factory and we also get a close up of Astra cars being loaded for export to Switzerland. The AM96 EMUs and their "sister" i11 hauled stock have brought new standards to passenger accommodation in Belgium; we have a look at them in action - inside and out! You can't visit northern Belgium and miss Brugge! We have a look at the sights and see what Bombardier are about to out shop from their local works! 

Narrated  RT 65mins