Over-budget Mons station finally opens 10 years late

The new Mons railway station will be brought into service on Wednesday 18 December and formally inaugurated on 31 January 2025 as part of the Mons en Lumières festival - 10 years late and massively over-budget.

The initial budget for the works was €37 million but the latest estimate, announced in November by Belgian railway company SNCB’s station director Patrick Couchard, was as high as €480 million, with annual maintenance estimated at nearly €1 million.

This thirteen-fold increase in the budget puts the station’s total cost at almost half a billion euros, more than 10 times what was planned in 2001. It is also coming 10 years behind schedule and had been expected to enter service in time for Mons' 2015 celebrations as European Capital of Culture.

The new station is called Calatrava after Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish architect who designed it, and is the fourth version of Mons station.

The first station, located on what is now Place Léopold on the new Ligne du Midi between Brussels and the French border via Quiévrain to Paris, opened on 19 December 1841.

That first building was replaced by a new one in 1874 that was destroyed by bombing raids on 10 May 1944. Its replacement was inaugurated in 1952, then closed to passengers in March 2013 for modernisation works.

The initial project entrusted to Calatrava was for a footbridge over the platforms linking the historic heart of Mons with the new Grands Prés district, which then evolved into a "gateway station", which required the demolition of the 1950s structure.

The delayed and over-budget project was the subject of a report by the Court of Auditors and much criticism from politicians, including MPs Gilles Foret and Vincent Scourneau (MR).

“How could budgets be allowed to slip away like this?” the pair questioned.

“We're now talking about half a billion euros when we know that SNCB is having difficulty completing work elsewhere in the country. The slippage is catastrophic and shows a lack of care in management at every level.”

SNCB’s Couchard acknowledged that “clearly, this is a very large investment, above the average cost of other stations”, but warned against making illogical comparisons, citing inflation and the changing value of the euro over the two decades of work.

The main driver behind the budget changes, RTBF reports, is that the project’s scope has expanded from a simple footbridge to a brand new station from a world-renowned architect, including demolition of the previous structure.

Work on the project was also extremely behind schedule, with several of the companies involved going bankrupt.

Couchard assured MPs that, from now on, the company was working in a completely different way, on the basis of a 10-year investment programme that avoids this kind of "surprise".

Mons station’s woes are not just limited to the massive overhaul, however. Even the Christmas tree put up for the holiday season had to be taken down for failing to comply with specifications, a city spokesperson said.

According to the Mons city centre development agency, the tree was not the right type and posed a potential safety risk to passers-by in a particularly busy area.

The tree will be replaced by the same supplier as the previous one.

Photos: (main image) Eric Cornu/Belga; SNCB