Antwerpen-Centraal railway station

Antwerpen-Centraal (Antwerp Central) is the name of the main railway station in the Belgian city of Antwerp. The station is operated by the national railway company NMBS. The original station building was constructed between 1895 and 1905 as a replacement for the original terminus of the Brussels-Mechelen-Antwerp Railway. The stone clad terminus buildings, with a vast dome above the waiting room hall were designed by Louis Delacenserie and the vast (185 metres long and 44 metres high) iron and glass trainshed by Clement van Bogaert. The viaduct into the station is also a notable structure designed by local architect Jan Van Asperen.

In 2009 the American magazine Newsweek judged Antwerpen-Centraal the world's fourth greatest train station. In 1998 large-scale reconstruction work began to convert the station from a terminus to a through station. A new tunnel has been 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 previous layout obliged Amsterdam-Brussels trains to call only at Berchem or reverse at Central). The major elements of the construction project were completed in 2007, and the first through trains ran on 25 March 2007. The station has four levels and 14 tracks

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 program 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. Media related to Antwerp Central Station at Wikimedia Commons