Wonders & Blunders
/My wonder and blunder are both stations both originally built in the nineteenth century and both recently modernized.
Antwerp station, designed in 1895 by Louis Delasencerie, is by no means huge, but is a Beaux-Arts jewel with a magnificently lofty glass domed waiting hall reminiscent of the Paris Opera, from which grand stairs lead up to the original elevated tracks below the single great arch of the train shed. What makes the station so special though is what has been done recently when the decision was taken to add eight new tracks below ground, four of them being new high speed through lines.