Trains across Belgium are expected to run more or less like usual from Monday (10 January) after hundreds of trains were temporarily cancelled in December due to staff shortages and an altered service during the festivities.
Although the national railway company SNCB traditionally changes its timetables during the Christmas holidays (when around 93% of trains are in service), an additional 100 trains were cancelled every day because many staff had tested positive or were in quarantine following a high-risk contact, resulting in staff shortages.
"After the slightly reduced train offer during the Christmas holidays, SNCB returns to a quasi-maximum train offer," the company's spokesperson Bart Crols stated in a press release.
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As a result of an improvement in the number of staff members who are off sick or in quarantine, the temporary suspension of about a hundred trains that was introduced at the start of December 2021 will be lifted by 10 January.
The seven out of the 18 peak-hour trains travelling to and from Brussels that were cancelled at the end of November will also once again be running.
By increasing the number of trains again, the company wants to "ensure its passengers a maximum service in safe sanitary conditions."
