Antwerp residents affectionately call their main station, Antwerp Central, the 'Railway Cathedral'. As soon as you step into the impressive ticket hall with its 75-meter-high vaulted roof, you'll immediately understand why this name is so fitting.

The station building was constructed between 1899 and 1905. Antwerp Central Station was originally, and until 2007, a terminal station. In other words, it was a station where trains arrived but had to turn around to depart again. Between 1998 and 2007, the station was converted into a transit station by means of a tunnel.

The station building was designed in an eclectic style by Louis Delacenserie, the renowned Belgian architect, who drew inspiration for this design from a station building in Switzerland and the Pantheon in Rome. Adjacent to the reception building are the above-ground platforms with ten dead-end tracks, covered by a 43-meter-high steel structure designed by engineer Clément Van Bogaert. Construction of the roof alone took four years! The station opened on August 11, 1905.

The building has won numerous awards and is among the world's finest. In 2010, it was voted the most beautiful station in Europe, and in 2014, the British-American news site Mashable even named it the most beautiful train station in the world.

The station is among the five busiest in Belgium. Not easy to capture the essence of the building without travellers constantly passing through the shot. To have some peace and quiet, the National Railway Company of Belgium was asked for permission to take photos outside opening hours.