Railway stations are magical. While their purpose has been to serve as facilitators of travel for hundreds of years, they have done much more than that.

They have inspired millions of people to set off on long and arduous journeys to far-flung corners of the world, and have even inspired the arts, with countless authors romanticising the act of train travel.

Things like industrialisation, transportation, and development wouldn’t have been possible without trains.

They generated vast wealth for those who owned them, and soon, not only did railway stations serve as mere points from which to travel but as grand designs, beautiful hulks of buildings intended to catch the eye and embed a lasting impression on those arriving in them.

Nowhere is this truer than at Antwerp-Central Railway Station — the “Railway Cathedral” — where art and transport truly collide.

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Antwerp’s first-ever railway station was the terminus of Brussels-Mechelen-Antwerp railway line, which was opened on June 3, 1836.

It was made entirely of wood and was later replaced by a grander building on the opening of the new international connection to the Netherlands in 1854–55.

People then likely thought it couldn’t get any better, but they were wrong. Just a few decades later, in 1905, Antwerp-Central Railway Station came into being.

Started in 1895, it was designed by architect Louis Delacenserie who was inspired, among other things, by the Pantheon in Rome.

Today, steelwork covers the platform and combines with stone masonry to create an eclectic style that truly straddles the ages.

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History bleeds through the station, the grandest of all its structures contained at Astridplein, which similarly consists of a steel platform canopy and a stone station building.

The canopy itself was designed between 1895 and 1899 by Clément Van Bogaert and stands at an impressive 43 metres high, 186 metres long and 66 metres wide.

A fully functional station, in 1975, it became a protected monument and in 1986 was renovated thoroughly to ensure its preservation.

Understandably, its original capacity didn’t quite fit the needs of the 21st century, and so between 2000 and 2009, work saw the railway hall double in size to include platforms on two underground levels.

Before, trains were forced to come into the station and go out the same way to join up with additional connections, but now they can simply pass through, thanks to the new railway tunnel between the station and the north of the city.

While Antwerp may seem a fair distance from the UK, innovations such as the Eurostar mean the city is quite literally in touching distance.

Jump on a train at London St Pancras International to Brussels, and after a short connection which is included in your ticket, you could find yourself standing at the heart of the Railway Cathedral in under four hours.

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