From Sunday 15 December 2024, there will be no more Mortsel-Deurnesteenweg Railway Station. The physical station, with rails and platforms, remains, but will henceforth be known as part of Mortsel Railway Station.

Danny and I went to Mortsel-Deurnesteenweg yesterday, Sunday 8 December. The last time we could go under that name. 

At the moment, trains only stop at Mortsel-Deurnesteenweg near Deurnestraat on Sundays. There is no Deurnesteenweg, only a Deurnestraat. Steenweg, or ‘stone road’ can be translated to causeway. In French the word chaussée is used. So in French the name of the station is Mortsel-Chaussée de Deurne. And straat is of course just street. 

But from 15 December, no train will stop at Mortsel-Deurnesteenweg. To make it clearer for travellers, NMBS / SNCB has decided to merge Mortsel and Mortsel-Deurnesteenweg stations into Mortsel station. Both stops are 130 metres apart.

There will be no changes to the train service. From Monday to Saturday, two S-trains pass by per hour, on Sundays this is still one S-train per hour. This type of connection is part of the suburban train service in Antwerp.

All S1 trains on the Antwerp-Central – Brussels – Nivelles line will stop at Mortsel and Mortsel-Liersesteenweg (Mortsel-Chaussée de Lierre) stations from mid-December on Sundays, just like on weekdays and Saturdays. They will then no longer stop at Mortsel-Deurnesteenweg and Mortsel-Oude God (Mortsel-Vieux Dieu).

Platform numbers

At Mortsel station, there will be a change in the numbering of the tracks. The numbers of platforms 1 and 2 will be changed to 3 and 4. The former Deurnesteenweg platforms will remained numbered 1 and 2.

The area around this station could still change radically in the future. Belgian railway infrastructure manager Infrabel is in a process to place Deurnestraat under the railway line so that the level crossing can disappear. During an information session it was indicated that these works could start in the spring of 2027. The final design has yet to be drawn up.

History of Mortsel-Deurnesteenweg

In 1836, the first station of in the municipality of Mortsel, ‘Vieux Dieu’, was opened. In 1864, a second railway line was constructed that connected Antwerp with Boechout and Lier. A station was built on this line on Deurnestraat.

Around 1920, it became clear that the railway capacity of the Antwerp-Brussels line had become too small. On the border of Mortsel and Hove, the new tracks in the direction of Antwerp were diverted to the right to avoid the centre of Oude-God. Mortsel-Deurnesteenweg was opened in 1933.

Part of the railway was dug in to avoid level crossings. Here we still have the only guarded level crossing in Mortsel.

Above the garage door of house number 215, you can still clearly see that there used to be two doors here, one of which was the entrance to the then café.

Deurnestraat crosses two railway lines. The first, Antwerp-Brussels, was constructed in 1836 and incorporated almost a hundred years later. In October 1939, a new stop was built here for the employees of the companies in the area. A station was built for the second line, Antwerp-Lier, in 1895. This building was located between the house with number 215 and the railway line. 

Afterwards, a new station was built on the other side of the street, which no longer serves as a station.

In 2008, regular service stopped stopping at Mortsel-Deurnesteenweg. Currently and and yesterday it was the last day this happened, trains stopped at Mortsel-Deurnesteenweg only on Sundays.