Train World welcomes millionth visitor amid decline in attendance

Brussels’ flagship railway museum Train World has been visited more than one million times since it opened to the public in 2015 – but visitor numbers are in sharp decline, according to the latest figures.

Set in Schaerbeek’s scenic station, the museum brought together Belgium’s railway heritage once scattered across various sites including a small site at Brussels’ Gare du Nord.

Schaerbeek was chosen for its significance as being part of the very first railway line in Europe – the Brussels to Mechelen line that set off in 1835.

The museum was created with a €25 million investment. The aim was to attract 100,000 visitors a year. This goal was met between 2016-2019, with the museum bringing in more than 130,000 people annually, peaking at 135,827 in 2019.

The Covid-19 pandemic drastically reduced visitor numbers for 2020, but they increased against in 2021 and 2022, thanks mainly to a domestic audience, reaching more than 120,000 visitors a year. But, since 2023, attendance has been in freefall, with 92,035 visitors in 2023 and 77,346 last year.

Officials from Belgian rail operator SNCB, which oversees Train World, suggest the decline is perhaps due to the reduced appeal of recent temporary exhibitions.

But they are confident that reintroducing Train World to the Museum Pass programme – which offers visitors free access to more than 260 Belgian museums, including 50 in Brussels, for €64.95 a year – will reverse the trend.

Visitors begin their trip in the historic Schaerbeek station building complete with original ticket offices.

The main exhibits, including vintage steam train ‘Pays de Waes’, the oldest preserved locomotive on the European mainland, royal carriages and other historical gems such as the railwayman worker’s cottage, are displayed in a purpose-built exhibition space minutes from the entrance hall.

The scenography for the 8,000m² site was masterminded by Schaerbeek-born comic strip artist François Schuiten.

Temporary exhibitions are organised among the permanent pieces. In recent years, topics have included Tintin, Lego, Paul Delvaux and chocolate, with environmental themes including biodiversity and climate change also addressed.

The museum’s new exhibition “SNCB, Occupied Company: Between Collaboration and Resistance,” explores the controversial role of the railway company during the second world war.

“During the German occupation, the SNCB continued to run trains in the interest of the country and, despite internal resistance, also participated in the deportations to Germany and the camps, which exposes a deep moral dilemma between collaboration and resistance,” the museum said.

The exhibition is part of the commemorative activities of SNCB and is based on a study by the Centre for Research and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society into the role of the Belgian railways during the war.

This showed that the Belgian railways invoiced the German occupying forces for the deportations to concentration camps. Between 1942 and 1944, the SNCB deported more than 25,500 Jews and Roma. Some 189,542 Belgian forced labourers and 16,081 political prisoners were also transported to the east.

One of the recommendations formulated by a working group based on the investigation was that the railways should apologise for the deportations – and SNCB chief executive Sophie Dutordoir, among others, has already stated that she is willing to do so.