Belgium Weekend Trip 28 & 29 May 1994 "Do You Want a Lock-In?"


A weekend sociable trip to travel around Belgium and drink Beer, I'd always treated the country as somewhere you had to travel across to get from the Ferry to Germany, until one Sunday on the return from Germany we covered the Canoe trains out of Namur - and that was our main objective (train wise) on this trip.
The participants were Myself (Poodle), Tim Reiner (Reinersaurus), Brian York (Yorkie) and Richard Stirk (Stirk).

Saturday 28/05/94

 You normally drank in Dover before the overnight Ferry, didn't drink on the boat as too wedged with loud normal's, then you had about 2 hours to kill in Oostende before the first Koln service at 0532.
I personally walked 5 minutes or so to The Titanic, a bar with about 12 beers on tap, open 24 hours including doing food all night. It still amazes me how the bar staff in there never wrote anything down but I never saw them get an order wrong!
1503 looking rather smart at Oostend.

 Always a good start to get a run behind one of the hellfire 1600's, today was no exception.
1602#  Oostende - Gent-Sint-Pieters 0532 Oostende - Koln Hbf 63km
We were heading up to Antwerp to cover diesel hauled routes out of there. The whole area would be new track for me.
1205#  Gent-Sint-Pieters - Antwerpen Zuid 0631 Gent - Antwerpen Central 59km
I think there was a move to grab some takeaway Breakfast, we certainly didn't have a lot of time
7121 (Tram)  Antwerpen Zuid - Antwerpen Centraal
Then we covered the diesel hauled routes to Neerpelt & Hasselt.
6294 at Antwerpen Centraal (photo courtesy of Flikr member Laufbe)
6294#  Antwerpen Centraal - Neerpelt 0809 Antwerpen Centraal - Neerpelt 79km
6246#  Neerpelt - Mol 0924 Neerpelt - Antwerpen Centraal 23km
6255#  Mol - Hasselt 1059 Mol - Hasselt 43km
A very tidy little move, pleasant countryside and a different loco back out of Neerpelt to boot.
745      Hasselt - Liege Guillemins 1024 Antwerpen Centraal - Liege 53km
Lunch and a beer outside Liege station then onto the diesel route to Luxembourg.
5531#  Liege - Luxembourg 1308 Liege - Luxembourg 160km
The 4th man in our drinking team, Tim Reiner, joined us en-route he'd been bashing in Lux all day.
1809 at Luxembourg on the 1719 to Trier
Time for a quick beer here before a no-heat 1800 dropped on the Nohab (1600) turn:
1809#     Luxembourg - Trier 1719 Luxembourg - Trier 51km
181 212  Trier - Luxembourg 1122 Cuxhaven - Luxembourg 51km
2012#     Luxembourg - Namur xxxx Paris - Brussels 157km

We checked into the Ambassador hotel then made our way to the l'ebblousant a top pub, run by a crazy Wallonian Landlord called Alain Moss, who was a friend of some of our party. We got a beer and found out the Landlord was at a family wedding & wouldn't return til much later - a pity as Alain had promised us some of the rarer bottled beers from his cellar.
We had been sat for a short time drinking when one of the Barmaids (they were all Irish, from the local Language College) said "You've only been in about half an hour but your already more interesting than most of our Belgian regulars - they're pretty boring"!
We were engrossed in the age old pastime of winding each other up, easy with Yorkie as he bashed Logs (or venerable class 50's to some) and very easy with Stirk as he has been known to blow up occasionally! This particular evening the other 3 of us all started speaking with (bad) Scouse accents - which really seemed to get to Stirk "But none of you are from Liverpool!" was one of his shouted  comments.
About 2200 the staff announced they would be closing the bar as quiet apart from us - but never fear as you know Alain you will be locked inside with the Beer until he arrives!
Alain was known for letting the Cranks serve themselves & leave money over the bar - so we set about going round his extensive cellar seeing which rare (large) bottles of Belgium beers we could unearth & share.
A great evening turned into a great night when Alain arrived back about 0030 to find his pub locked but 4 merry soles enjoying themselves inside - he soon discovered a few gems for us that he'd put to one side for our visit - it must have been 2.30 am when we staggered back to the hotel!

Sunday 29/05/94

The Belgians love canoeing to such an extent that these trains ran every weekend of the spring & summer, utilising otherwise rare freight locos of classes 52, 53 & 54 - hence the interest to the Cranks.
5205    Namur - Houyet  0827 Namur - Houyet 43km
5401#  Houyet - Dinant  0830 Libramont - Dinant 15km
(5214 on rear DIT)
5305 at Dinant off the 0830 Libramont - Dinant 12/04/93 (as I've no photos from the 1994 trip)
It was about 9.45 am on a Sunday morning - time for something you couldn't do in the UK at this time of day - go for a beer of course! The sun was just burning off the river mist in Dinant, we had draught Hoegaarden served in iced glasses from the freezer, the bar was in a tennis club and we sat outside and enjoyed the moment.
5214  Dinant - Bertrix 1025 Dinant - Bertrix 72km
(5401 on rear DIT)
We had a quick drink in the station bar, I remember choosing a "Scottish" style beer which seems popular in Belgium but I've never drunk since as it was rubbish!
4510  Bertrix - Libramont  1202 Bertrix - Libramont 12km
320)   Libramont - Namur  1127 Luxembourg - Brussels Nord 90km
326)
2002#  Namur - Brussels Midi xxxx Paris - Brussels Midi 65km
We walked to a bar somewhere (surprise!) I cannot remember which one but I'm sure our guide wouldn't lead us astray. Tim tells me it served Rodenbach Grand Cru on draught. Then off to cover the diesel hauled route to De Panne.
2133#  Brussels Central - Gent-Sint-Pieters 1404 Eupen - Oostende 56km
6306#  Gent-Sint-Pieters - De Panne 1640 Gent - De Panne 85km
A long run behind 6306 so a beverage was required - we opted for the station buffet where we tried the Poperings Hommelbier 7.5% which is a hoppy, golden-bronze ale. It is made from a blend of winter, summer and aromatic pale malts and is gorgeous! We exhausted their stock of bottles just in time for our return journey behind a loud class 51!
The effects of the beer caused a mega upset on the journey, Stirk & Yorkie refusing to talk to each other after a disagreement over some trivial matter!
5122#   De Panne - Gent-Sint-Pieters  1913 De Panne - Schaarbeek 85km
Me and Tim left the others here, we decided to take a Sunday Only train to Mons that took a bit of a "Railtour" routing
5148#   Gent-Sint-Pieters - Mons 1951 Blankenburg - Mauberge 64km
                   (via Geraardsbergen & Ath)
Tim then stayed on through to Mauberge - as the train also did a rare curve in France!
842     Mons - Brussels Midi  2156 Saint Ghislain -  Schaarbeek 64km
1601   Brussels Midi - Oostende 2014 Koln - Oostende 119km

So the four of us managed to combine new track, plenty of new locos and copious amounts of beer all achieved in just a couple of days. I was a novice in Belgium but was well impressed with the whole weekend.



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