The Guillemins Train Station

The Guillemins train station in Liege brings back a bag full of memories: going to Maestricht to the dentist..., going to Koln with some friends, taking the train to Luneburg (ride I thought would never end!), going to Ostend to pick up the Malle to Dover when I was 13 (with a fellow passenger's pet monkey entertaining us!...), waiting in the cafe-restaurant...

But it also reminds me of car washes when Dad would take the Simca and my sister and I marvelled at the soap covering the windows, then the water... the smell of the fresh clean car...

I also remember being forgotten there when I returned from England...

The first Guillemins Station was built in 1842. There has been a rail link between Malines and Liège since 1837, but it ended at Ans due to a steep incline (± 450 feet) which had to be negotiated in order to reach the center of the city. This incline, built by Henri Maus enabled trains to finally travel as far as Liège from 1842 onward. The method involved towing the trains from the valley up to the Ans plateau. During the descent, great reliance was placed on the brakes of the train.

The Guillemins station was considerably enlarged in 1881, then again in 1905 at the time of the World Fair. The modern station as we now know it dates from 1956.
http://www.euro-liege-tgv.be/

A century after the 1905 World Fair in Liège, when it was a dominant player in the world's industrial scene, a new monument to engineering progress is scheduled for completion, heralding a new era of promise.

This is the vast arching roof structure of the new Calatrava TGV station in Liège. Like the wing of a giant sea ray, the roof, about the size of ten football fields, will rise above the station creating a new Crystal Palace.

The station is still under construction and maybe someday it will look like this video shows. This is dreamlike... not reality... but oh how beautiful... I can't seem to picture where exactely the streets I remember will be but then again it seems this is the prototype not the finished product which is not quite up to the design...

Still... watch this video and slow down... imagine arriving into this train station... I bet Harry Potter would fancy it too...

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1kwny_la-gare-de-liegeguillemins_tech