Rural Railway Discovery Center | Lobbes-Thuin Historic Tramway

The vicinal was the light railway system that served much of rural Belgium from the late nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century. Thuin is in the Sambre Valley in the province of Hainaut, south-west of Charleroi. The Association pour la Sauvegarde du Chemin de Fer Vicinal á Thuin operates a line to Lobbes. Part is an original vicinal route, the rest follows the tracks of a conventional railway, the Mons-Chimay line of the SNCB, which has been converted to the metre gauge of the vincinal. The line goes through picturesque wooded countryside, passing the notable church of St Ursmer at Lobbes and terraced gardens and a belfry at Thuin.

The association has 17 tramcars, nine of them in working order, mostly from vicinal lines, and the majority manufactured in Belgium. They include vehicles powered by steam, electricity and petrol engines. The oldest was built in 1888 by La Métallurgique of Tubize, the most recent were supplied to the Société National Chemin de Fer Vicinal in the 1950s. Visitors to the line can inspect the vehicles not currently in use in a large hangar, called the Rural Railway Discovery Center.