| Type | Government-owned corporation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Rail Transport |
| Founded | 1926 |
| Headquarters | Brussels, Belgium |
| Products | Rail Transport |
| Revenue | € 3.010 billion (2005) |
| Operating income | € 43,2 million (2005) |
| Net income | € -116 million (2005) |
| Employees | 37,865 (2005) |
| Subsidiaries | SNCB Logistics Publifer Syntigo and more |
| Website | http://www.b-rail.be/ |
| National Railway Company of Belgium | |||
| Operation | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure company | Infrabel | ||
| Statistics | |||
| Ridership | 206.5 million per year [1] | ||
| Passenger km | 9.9 billion per year [1] | ||
| Freight | ~60 million tons per year [2] | ||
| System length | |||
| Total | 3,374 kilometres (2,097 mi) [3] | ||
| Double track | 1,878 kilometres (1,167 mi) | ||
| Electrified | 3,002 kilometres (1,865 mi) [3] | ||
| Gauge | |||
| Main | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) | ||
| High-speed | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) | ||
| Electrification | |||
| 3000 V DC | Main network | ||
| 25 kV AC | High-speed lines, recent electrification | ||
| Features | |||
| No. stations | 546 [4] | ||
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The National Railway Company of Belgium, known as the Nationale Maatschappij der Belgische Spoorwegen () (NMBS) (Dutch) or the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Belges (SNCB) (French), is the Belgian national railway operator.
It is usually referred to in English as "Belgian Railways" or the SNCB.[5][6][7][8]
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It was created in 1926. The SNCB is an autonomous government company. In 2005, the company was split up into three parts: Infrabel, which manages the railway infrastructure, network operations and network access, the public railway operator SNCB itself to manage the freight (B-Cargo) and passenger services, and SNCB-Holding, which owns both public companies and supervises the collaboration between them. Essentially, this was a move to facilitate future liberalisation of railway freight and passenger services in agreement with European regulations. Several freight operators have since received access permissions for the Belgian network. In February 2011, SNCB Logistics began operating as a separate business.[9]
In 2008 the SNCB carried 207 million passengers[10] a total of 8,676 million passenger-kilometres over a network of 3,536 kilometres (of which 2,950 km are electrified, mainly at 3000 V DC and 351 km at 25 kV 50 Hz AC).
Tickets are relatively cheap and service frequent, in part due to the high population density, and in part to large government subsidies.
The network currently includes four high speed lines suitable for 300 km/h (190 mph) traffic: HSL 1 runs from just south of Brussels to the French border, where it continues to Paris and Lille (and London beyond that), HSL 2 runs from Leuven to Liège, HSL 3 runs from Liège to the German border near Aachen and HSL 4 connects with HSL-Zuid in the Netherlands to allow services to run from Antwerp to Rotterdam. All lines are equipped with ERTMS (ETCS level 2 + GSM-R, access and fall-back in level 1).
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