Maastricht-Brussels Express victim of the language barrier?: a photo-reportage

Crossroads photographer Herman Pijpers last Thursday 14 December decided to take a few shots of the newly launched Maastricht-Brussels Express train. Without his knowledge, he recorded a peculiar incident that took place right as he was shooting the following pictures:

Pay attention to the clock: it indicates 13.40. This means that for some reason, the express train that was supposed to depart from Maastricht at 13.07 is being held still at the station.

It is now 13.45. The train is standing still. The time of departure has been postponed to 14.07.

Finally passengers are being allowed to step onto the train.

Why was the 13.07 train cancelled?

On Friday 15 December, Dagblad De Limburger reported on the incident: it turns out that an inspector of the Dutch Transport and Water Management Inspectorate, who was controlling the 13.07 train, claimed that the train driver only spoke French. That, he stated, was against the rules.

But a spokesperson for the Belgian Railway company NMBS, which operates the new express service, denied the allegation, saying that the driver was a Walloon who was totally bilingual in French and Dutch in all the technical aspects of his job.

According to the paper, the “express” train finally left Maastricht with a delay of more than an hour and a half. The Belgian NMBS was forced to dispatch a second train driver head over heels to Maastricht by taxi. A spokesperson for the NMBS in Brussels commented that passengers heading for Paris or London “probably missed their connection”.

Was the Maastricht-Brussels express victim of the language barrier only three days after launch? (or of an “over zealous civil servant”, as the Brussels NMBS spokesperson wondered?)

Read the article in Dagblad De Limburger (in Dutch).

Maastricht Central Station

Photographs by Herman Pijpers

Related article: Maastricht Brussels Express: Le plus fast naar Brussel!