The original terminal station building was constructed between 1895 and 1905 as a replacement for the first terminus of the Brussels-Mechelen-Antwerp railway. The stone-clad building, with a vast dome above the waiting room hall, were designed by Louis Delacenserie. The viaduct into the station is also a notable structure designed by local architect Jan Van Asperen. A plaque on the north wall bears the name Middenstatie, an expression now antiquated in Dutch. The station is widely regarded as the finest example of railway architecture in Belgium, although the extraordinary eclecticism of the influences on Delacenserie's design had led to a difficulty in assigning it to a particular architectural style. In W. G. Sebald's novel Austerlitz an ability to appreciate the full range of the styles that might have influenced Delacenserie is used to illustrate the brilliance of the fictional architectural historian who is the novel's protagonist. In 2009 the American magazine Newsweek judged Antwerpen-Centraal the world's fourth greatest train station. In 2014 the British-American magazine Mashable awarded Antwerpen-Centraal the first place for the most beautiful railway station in the world.
Train hall
The originally iron and glass train hall was designed by Clément Van Bogaert, an engineer, and covers an area of 12,000 square metres. The height of the station was once necessary for the smoke of steam locomotives. The roof of the train hall was originally made of steel.
During World War II, severe damage was inflicted to the train hall by the impact of V-2 rockets, without destroying the structural stability of the building, according to the National Railway Company of Belgium. Nevertheless, it has been claimed that the warping of the substructure due to a V-2 impact had caused constructional stresses. The impact remains visible due to a lasting wave-distortion in the roofing of the hall. in the roof of the train hall of the Antwerp Central Station, as seen from the roof of an adjacent building in the Pelikaansstraat on 13 September 2016. The warping of the structure can be seen at the far top-right end of the roof here. In the mid-twentieth century, the building's condition had deteriorated to the point that its demolition was being considered. The station was closed on 31 January 1986 for safety reasons, after which restoration work to the roof and façades was performed. The stress problems due to the impact of bombs during the war were reportedly solved by the use of polycarbonate sheets instead of glass, due to its elasticity and its relatively low weight, which avoided the need for extra supporting pillars. After replacing or repairing steel elements, they were painted burgundy. Copper was also used in the renovation process of the roof.
Expansion for high-speed trains
In 1998 large-scale reconstruction work began to convert the station from a terminus to a through station. A tunnel was excavated between Berchem station in the south of the city and Antwerpen-Dam station in the north, passing under Central station, with platforms on two underground levels. This allows Thalys, HSL 4 and HSL-Zuid high-speed trains to travel through Antwerp Central without the need to turn around. The major elements of the construction project were completed in 2007, and the first through trains ran on 25 March 2007. This complete project has cost approximately €1.6 billion. The station was awarded a Grand Prix at the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards in 2011.
Station layout
The station has four levels and 14 tracks arranged as follows:
Level +1: The original station, 6 terminating tracks, arranged as two groups of three and separated by a central opening allowing views of the lower levels
Level 0: Houses ticketing facilities and commercial space
Level −1: 7 m below street level, 4 terminating tracks, arranged in two pairs separated by the central opening.
Level −2: 18 m below street level, 4 through tracks, leading to the two tracks of the tunnel under the city.
Train services
The station is served by the following services:
High speed services Amsterdam - Rotterdam - Antwerp - Brussels - Paris
High speed services Amsterdam - Rotterdam - Antwerp - Brussels - Lille
A staged "flash mob"-like event at the station in early 2009, featuring the song "Do-Re-Mi" from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music, became a viral video. It was performed by 200 dancers of various ages, along with several dozen waiting passengers who just jumped in and joined the dance themselves. The video was produced to publicize Op zoek naar Maria, the Belgian TV version of the BBC talent competition programme How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, about the search for an actress to play the lead role in a stage revival of The Sound of Music. The station is used in Agatha Christie's Poirot episode "The Chocolate Box" to represent a station in Brussels. The beginning of Austerlitz, the final novel of the German writerW. G. Sebald is set in the station.
