Railway stations as junctions of local and international networks : the stations of Rotterdam and Antwerp as focus points for the flows of goods, passengers and ideas, 1840-2000

Both Belgium and the Netherlands are important chains in international traffic and commercial flows. Between 1835 and 1870, national rail networks were constructed in Belgium and in the Netherlands. Where railway construction in Belgium was very much forward in character and directed by the state from the start on, the laying out of railways in the Netherlands had a much slower pace and was in its first phase done by private investors. This was not without consequences for the location of local railway stations and emplacements. When the railways started to generate increasing numbers of passengers and goods shipments form the middle of the nineteen century on, railway station were relocated and new stations and emplacements were built. The increasing traffic and network density caused however local mobility to grow much faster than 'national' ridership. At these railway stations rail traffic flows merged and mixed with other flows of omnibuses, streetcars, horse drawn wagons, a rising tide of cyclists, the first taxicabs, a growing flow of pedestrians and barges and ferries. Despite the undeniable preference of municipal authorities for public transport, Dutch and Belgian streets were increasingly invaded by mechanized means of individual mobility. The first urban traffic jams were caused by bicycles during the mid-1920s, only to be aggravated by motor trucks, buses and cars which threatened the efficiency of the tramway network. This triggered authorities to tighten their control of the cycling masses by introducing new rules, regulations and physical appliances and measures to attract more passengers for public transport. The development of the design of the squares in front of the Antwerp and Rotterdam railway stations is reflecting this phenomenon. With the mass motorization from the second half of the fifties, congestion became a structural phenomenon, followed by new regulations, appliances and road and parking lot building programs. In Antwerp the municipality and the railways had to adapt existing railway stations to these changing traffic patterns, while their counterparts in Rotterdam were able to make a fresh start due to the bombardment of May 1940. This paper will explore in what ways local traffic and networks in these two cities were connected through the local railways station to the national and international infrastructures. It will show that these railways stations were not only junctions of local and national and international traffic, but also were reflections of a circulation of international concepts and designs of handling these flows.