Brussels-South railway station (French: Gare de Bruxelles-Midi, Dutch: Station Brussel-Zuid, IATA code: ZYR), officially Brussels-South (French: Bruxelles-Midi, Dutch: Brussel-Zuid), is a major railway station in Brussels, Belgium. Geographically, it is located in Saint-Gilles/Sint-Gillis on the border with the adjacent municipality of Anderlecht and just south of the City of Brussels.
Brussels-South is one of over a dozen railway stations in Brussels, and one of the three principal rail stations in the heart of the city, the two others being Brussels-Central and Brussels-North. The station, which was a terminus when it was inaugurated in 1869, became a transit station with the opening of the North–South connection in 1952. Nowadays, it is the busiest station in Belgium, and is the only Brussels stop for international high-speed rail services: Eurostar, Thalys and ICE.
Underneath Brussels-South is the rapid transit Gare du Midi/Zuidstation station on lines 2, 3, 4 and 6 of the Brussels Metro and premetro (underground tram) systems, which serves as an important node of the Brussels Intercommunal Transport Company (STIB/MIVB).
Naming
The station was named after Le Midi, the French name of the region of Southern France,[1][2] as trains departing from this station in the 19th century had that region as their final destination. The term Midi derives from mi (‘middle’) and di (‘day’) in Old French, comparable to the term Mezzogiorno to indicate Southern Italy or Miazăzi which is a synonym for South in Romanian. The name Brussel-Zuid, as the Dutch “translation” of Bruxelles-Midi, was only introduced after the equality law of 1898.
The Brussels-Capital Region is bilingual; hence, both the French and Dutch names of the station—Bruxelles-Midi and Brussel-Zuid—are official. Outside Belgium, this often leads to the use of combined shorthands; for example in the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable, Brussels-South is designated as Brussels Midi/Zuid; NS (Dutch Railways) announce the station as Brussel Zuid/Midi.
Features
The station is surrounded by the Avenue Fonsny/Fonsnylaan to the east, the Rue de France/Frankrijkstraat to the west, the Rue Couverte/Bedektestraat to the north and the Rue des Vétérinaires/Veeartsenstraat to the south. In the 1990s, the Eurostar terminal was added on the Rue de France’s side. This part contains two bay platforms with no onward northbound connection.
A tripartite agreement was signed by Belgium, France and the UK on 15 May 1993, which permitted British officials to carry out pre-embarkation immigration controls for passengers travelling on direct Eurostar train services from Brussels to London and Belgian officials to carry out pre-embarkation immigration controls at London Waterloo International (and subsequently St Pancras International) station for passengers travelling in the other direction. As a result of this agreement, juxtaposed controls were set up in the station. On 1 October 2004, an administrative arrangement was signed by Belgium, France and the UK to extend juxtaposed controls to Eurostar services between London and Brussels which make a stop in Lille.
Eurostar passengers travelling to the UK clear exit checks from the Schengen Area (carried out by the Belgian Federal Police) as well as UK entry checks (conducted by the UK Border Force) in the station before boarding their train. On the other hand, Eurostar passengers travelling to Lille Europe or Calais-Fréthun remain within the Schengen Area and are therefore not subject to border checks. Accordingly, they go through a different departure area in the station (bypassing the juxtaposed controls for passengers heading to the UK) and travel in a separate designated coach (available in standard class only) controlled by security guards, who ensure that all of these passengers disembark at Lille/Calais before the train continues to the UK.
Metro and premetro station
The metro station, called Gare du Midi/Zuidstation, opened on 2 October 1988 as (at that time) the terminus of metro line 2 from Simonis. Line 2 has since been extended beyond Brussels-South to Clemenceau in 1993, Delacroix in 2006, and Gare de l’Ouest/Weststation in 2009. Since 1993, the station also accommodates premetro (underground tram) services at separate platforms, with cross-platform interchange between metro and premetro in both directions.