{"id":28803,"date":"2024-04-19T14:34:12","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T04:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=28803"},"modified":"2024-04-19T14:34:19","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T04:34:19","slug":"rare-100-year-old-train-carriage-found-buried-in-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=28803","title":{"rendered":"Rare 100-Year-Old Train Carriage Found Buried in Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Archaeologists in Belgium have unearthed a century-old train carriage marked with the logo of the London North Eastern Railway<\/a> (LNER). Nobody knows how the rare model ended up underground in the metropolis of Antwerp, 500 miles from the rail company\u2019s English headquarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old train car was found during excavations of a 19th-century fortress known as the Northern Citadel, according to a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0from LNER. Made of wood and painted dark red with yellow lettering, the wagon is a \u201cremovals\u201d car, used for moving people\u2019s belongings from residence to residence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe wooden removals truck is thought to be around 100 years old,\u201d says archaeologist Femke Martens<\/a> in the statement. \u201cIt\u2019s a mystery as to how the carriage came to be in Antwerp, and unfortunately there\u2019s very little left of the relic, as it disintegrated while being excavated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"workers\"\/
The train car fell apart when archaeologists attempted to excavate it. London North Eastern Railway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Based on physical examinations and internal research, LNER officials think the car is one of the first models in the company\u2019s removal fleet, which operated for a brief period around 1930, per BBC News<\/a>\u2019 Rachel Russell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martens says that the car was identifiable only by its painted inscriptions: \u201cFurniture removal to house,\u201d \u201cEnquire at any station,\u201d \u201cLNER\u201d and \u201cBK769\u201d (\u201cB\u201d specifies the wagon\u2019s size class, while \u201cK\u201d indicates it was used to carry furniture).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The railway company, originally called the London and North Eastern Railway,\u00a0began operations<\/a>\u00a0in 1923. It was the second largest of the \u201cBig Four\u201d railway companies formed by Britain\u2019s 1921\u00a0Railways Act<\/a>, also known as the Grouping Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The act came soon after the end of World War I, which had damaged<\/a> the United Kingdom\u2019s railway systems. By the early 1920s, 120 companies<\/a> were operating its 20,000 miles of track. The government took action to organize the system, splitting the railways into four regional companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"full
The car was an early model in the company’s fleet of trucks used to transport customers’ belongings from home to home. London North Eastern Railway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By the early 1930s, LNER was servicing people moving houses by transporting their belongings in \u201csimple square boxes\u201d on the railroad, reports the Brussels Times<\/em><\/a>\u2019 Lauren Walker. The first editions of these cars were painted reddish-brown, just like the recently excavated model. However, a few years later, the company switched to a blue model, which was manufactured on a larger scale\u2014making the discovery of the earlier red design \u201call the rarer and more unique,\u201d per the statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Archaeologists are excavating the site ahead of the construction of the Oosterweel Link<\/a>, a new motorway that will encircle the city. How the train reached this site is a mystery, though city officials think it could have once been used as a storage space, according to the Brussels Times<\/em>. As company officials tell BBC News<\/a>, it\u2019s \u201chighly unlikely\u201d the discovery will be returned to England due to its \u201cvery fragile state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re fascinated by the history of our brand,\u201d says Stuart Thomas, LNER\u2019s communications director, in a statement<\/a>. \u201cJust last year, we celebrated 100 years since the LNER came into being in 1923. In our 101st year, it is incredible to discover more of LNER history has been buried in a field in Belgium for so many decades.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The wooden LNER train wagon was a \u201cremovals truck\u201d used to move people\u2019s belongings between residences<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":28804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,1759,51,163],"tags":[7521,7],"class_list":["post-28803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-lner","category-passenger-rail","category-rail-industry-news-australia-new-zealand","tag-europe","tag-transport"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28805,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28803\/revisions\/28805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}