Mechelen Railway Museum

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Model of the train station from 1888 in the De Mijlpaal Railway Museum with a background image of the current building

The Mechelen Railway Museum (in Dutch Spoorwegmuseum De Mijlpaal ) is a museum in the Belgian city ​​of Mechelen . The museum shows the origin and development of the NMBS , the Belgian national railway company.

The museum

The museum is located in the area of ​​the Centrale Werkplaatsen Mechelen, known in Mechelen as the Arsenalviertel ( het arsenaal ). The name of the museum is reminiscent of the memorial column that is currently (2008) erected in front of the Mechelen train station . The milestone was erected in 1835 to commemorate the construction of the first railway line between Brussels and Mechelen. The stone has a practical function: the distance from there was measured in miles as the starting point for the new train stations.

The building in which the museum was housed dates from 1837, making it probably the oldest railway building on the European continent.

closure

The museum was closed on October 1, 2011. The collections have been moved to the new museum of the NMBS in Schaarbeek , in the Train World .

Attractions

A fire engraving in the museum shows the festivities on the departure of the first train from Groendreef in Brussels to Mechelen on May 5, 1835. The train stopped in front of the Leuven-Dijletrein canal, there was no bridge over it yet. This was only built in April 1836. The first railway building, which was replaced by an imposing structure in 1888, did not yet exist either. The travelers, including King Leopold I , who boarded undetected in Vilvoorde , were first brought to the other side by pontoon. They were received in today's Mechelen train station.

Furthermore, three models are shown that give a picture of Mechelen from the years 1835, 1885 and 1935.

L'Eléphant

The locomotives

The replicas of two locomotives are striking in the museum. These were built in 1885 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Belgian railways.

  • L'Eléphant, or de Olifant (elephant), was one of the three locomotives used on the first trip. It was built in 1834 by GWR Charles Tayleur locomotives , an English factory that worked for Robert Stephenson and Company . When building the first railway line, she brought in building materials. It had a vapor pressure of 6.2 kg / cm²
  • Le Belge (de Belg), the first steam locomotive produced in Belgium by NV Cockerill (based on the English model).

  • Locomotive Le Belge

  • Armchair from the Orient Express

  • Berlin model from 1835

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Spoorwegmuseum is not a sea. , www.mechelenblogt.be; October 2011.