Montzen-Gare (French for Montzen Station) is a train station located in the Belgian city Montzen. The Montzen-Gare district was created after the construction of line 24. Construction of the station started somewhere around 1914, and it was opened in 1917. From 1919, railroad transport increased heavily as a result of the first world war. Due to the increase of transport, the Belgian State was forced to expand the Montzen shunting yard.
The original station and shunting yard were destroyed after a bombing in the second world war. An emergency station was built to provide passenger transportation. Not long after that, in 1957 the passenger line got shut down and Montzen-Gare was left to be a cargo only station. A final date in which the station was completely shut down remains unknown.
Enough backstory, we were on our way back from Sanatorium du Basil when I realized that we were pretty close to the city of Montzen. It wasn’t late in the day, so we had some time to visit Montzen-Gare. After parking the car in a nearby street, we started looking for possible entrances. Which were not that hard to find.
We made our way onto the terrain. The first thing we come across is what remains of some wooden railway ties. The tracks that are supposed to be lying on these ties are gone. No clue where they went. Nature has pretty much taken over the shunting yard and exterior of Montzen-Gare, trees and bushes everywhere. We started walking to the station, only to find it in a completely trashed state.
A bit disappointing, but we weren’t expecting too much. I already knew that the cargo trains that once were in the station had been demolished in 2012, so there wasn’t really anything inside the station. Inside there are 3 platforms, one with tracks and two without tracks. Montzen-Gare has definitely seen better times. We roam around the platforms, and the numerous rooms, but there’s absolutely nothing to see.
We took some pictures, and then we went outside to explore the back side of the shunting yard, but with nature taking over everything, the shunting yard is a boring place to see. You can’t really go anywhere due to the massive amount of trees, bushes and other plants that are growing. So we decided to leave the place. On our way back we see that there is an actual open entrance to the station, after doing some research I found that there were some plans to open the station as part of the museum train route combined with the Ravel biking route. In conclusion, Montzen-Gare is a trashed place that is left to decay away in the upcoming years. It is not worth the drive, but if it is on your route you could definitely visit this place.
