Tim & Gabe Ride The Lost Railway To The Baarle Enclaves

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Hello and huh and welcome to beautiful Belgium for the first of two videos exploring the Bala Enclaves, the legendarily complicated area of international borders between Belgium and the Netherlands. You have sent me more requests to make a video about this than anywhere else on Earth. So, I'm not going to make one. I'm going to make two. Later on, we'll explore the borderline insanity of the town itself.

[00:00:26]But before that, we're going to explore a completely different line. This one, which is why I've come to a railway station about 10 km south of the border in the Belgian town of Tout.

[00:00:40]These days, this is the end of the line, but the tracks used to go much further all the way into the Netherlands. And of course, we're not here to see any of that.

[00:00:50]>> No, wait. Yes, we are. Who on earth are you? My name is Gabe. I have a YouTube channel called What on Earth Is This?

[00:00:58]All about interesting travel and transport things around the world.

[00:01:02]>> Oh, that sounds good. Uh, do you want to come along and join?

[00:01:10]>> Do you fancy coming along and having an explore?

[00:01:12]>> I thought you would never ask.

[00:01:14]>> So, today we're going to be riding along the former railway to the famous Barala Enclave. And what with it being a former railway, the only way you can really ride it now is on a bicycle. But luckily, it turns out that Turnout had turned out a selection of bicycles for us to hire. So we grabbed two of them and set off up the line.

[00:01:35]The entire route of the old railway has now been converted into a cycle path called the Bell Line. More about that name in a moment. And as you can see, the existing track continues alongside us for a few hundred meters or so before ending in a bunch of sidings, at which point we cross over a canal, get briefly distracted by a World War I bunker, and then it's pretty much a straight line all the way from here to the Dutch border, or at least the first Dutch border. There's going to be a few of them. I don't know exactly if you know this off the top of your head, but what is bells? As in like Bell's Lyncher. Bez Lintier or Lentia means the little Belgian line.

[00:02:17]>> Ah, >> so Bez is Belgian.

[00:02:20]>> Oh, right. Okay.

[00:02:22]The line was built in the 1860s by Belgium's Great Central Railway Company in order to connect Tout through the Enclaves to the Dutch city of Tilborg.

[00:02:33]And it was part of a grand plan by the Great Central to create an express route between Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris.

[00:02:41]Meanwhile, on the Dutch side of the border, the project became known as the Little Belgian line. But I'm just going to interrupt myself there because at this point, we came across a thing.

[00:02:53]>> There's a thing.

[00:02:54]>> There is a thing.

[00:02:56]>> So, uh, what's this, Gabe?

[00:02:58]>> This is the Tourn Belin observation tower, apparently.

[00:03:04]meaning look, torren meaning tower.

[00:03:08]And we're looking out on the tornout fengabit.

[00:03:13]The torn out fen area. I imagine this is good for bird spotting. And well, it's certainly good for spotting.

[00:03:21]>> Oh my gosh.

[00:03:23]>> It's good for eating.

[00:03:24]>> Yeah, >> involuntarily, I should say.

[00:03:29]>> Some decent fenon.

[00:03:30]>> Yeah, nice view.

[00:03:36]All right. Should we carry on cycling?

[00:03:40]>> So, it's we're about 10 minutes from the Dutch border, but once we cross the Dutch border, like is Bala right there or is it like do we have to keep going a bit further?

[00:03:50]>> Yeah. Once we cross over the main Belgian Dutch border, we then almost immediately hit the first enclave.

[00:04:00]>> Right.

[00:04:01]>> But once we're through that, it is a little bit further before we get to Balor. I think it's 15 20 minutes.

[00:04:09]>> Now, in theory, the Great Central Railways plan to make this the main line between Brussels and Amsterdam could actually have provided a quicker and more direct route between the two capitals. Problem was, in reality, the route was operated by four different companies, and the Great Central could never get them all to coordinate their timets. As a result, passengers often had to wait hours at the connecting stations. The journey took far longer than it should have done and what was supposed to become a major crossber mainline never became more than just well a little Belgian line. But fast forward 40 years to the early 1900s and those four companies are down to just two. The nationalized Belgian railways in Belgium which has long since swallowed up the Great Central and the Dutch state railways in the Netherlands.

[00:05:00]And suddenly the Belgian railways have a great idea.

[00:05:04]>> So is this the border coming up here?

[00:05:06]>> I believe so. Yeah.

[00:05:09]>> Obviously there'll be one of the >> Wait, this is a platform on our left.

[00:05:12]>> Oh, yeah. I completely missed that.

[00:05:16]And this, I assume, is where the building station building used to be.

[00:05:20]In 1906, the now nationalized Belgian railways began a major investment program in the line designed to resurrect the Great Central's original plan, including the opening of a brand new station right here on the border. It was built on a grand scale with customs facilities on both sides in order to process all the passengers they were expecting and an enormous 24 track goods to handle all the freight. And then just eight years later, World War I started and the Germans stopped all crossber traffic between Belgium and the Netherlands.

[00:05:56]>> All right, what have we got up here?

[00:05:58]>> Well, it's a restaurant, >> but appears to be closed.

[00:06:02]>> A restaurant that is not open, >> but it is still an old train platform, and there are actual tracks down here.

[00:06:10]>> I'm guessing this is an old goods shed.

[00:06:12]Then >> it's now uh it's not open until tomorrow. The restaurant >> not open until tomorrow.

[00:06:18]>> Yeah, it's not open until midday on Saturday and today is Friday.

[00:06:23]>> So, I think we've agreed, Gabe, this would be a great place to have a drink.

[00:06:27]>> Oh, it would be perfect if it was open.

[00:06:29]>> We've timed it terribly by accident.

[00:06:32]>> Yep. And speaking of terrible timing, that interruption by World War I could barely have happened at a worse time for the railway. Although the train service picked up again after the war, by now they were beginning to face increasing competition from buses and cars and passenger numbers never really recovered. Eventually, the government decided to cut its losses and passenger services were discontinued in 1934.

[00:07:00]According to my phone, we're apparently coming up to the first enclave already or >> Oh, yeah. Is this it here?

[00:07:07]>> I think so.

[00:07:10]Yeah, there's something on the floor up there. Yes, that is it. Yep. Right back into Belgium.

[00:07:19]Yay.

[00:07:22]Let's go.

[00:07:23]>> So, I think we've got a couple of hundred meters of Belgium before we pop back out into the Netherlands again.

[00:07:32]>> Yeah. I actually don't know how wide this enclave is. This first one.

[00:07:38]Oh, there it is up there. I see it on the ground.

[00:07:44]>> Belgium. Belgium. Belgium. Belgium.

[00:07:47]>> Back into the Netherlands.

[00:07:47]>> And back in the Netherlands.

[00:07:50]>> I've got a hankering for stroop waffles.

[00:07:52]Or what other famous Dutch things are there?

[00:07:55]>> Definitely a shout for a stroop waffle, isn't there?

[00:07:58]Although the passenger stations closed in the 1930s, the line was still used by freight trains up until the 1970s, after which it closed properly, then reopened as a heritage line before that ran out of money. And finally, the tracks were ripped up and turned into a cycle path in the 1990s.

[00:08:18]Anyway, we're now on the final stretch of our journey into the town of Bala itself, or more accurately, the jewel town of Bala, where the Belgian bits are known as Bala Herto and the Dutch bits are known as Bala Nasau. And we're going to need to cross through one of the Belgian bits before we get to the station.

[00:08:37]It's Oh, we're going to cross it any second. There it is.

[00:08:41]>> Oh, yeah. Next to the dog.

[00:08:49]Hey.

[00:08:49]>> Hello.

[00:08:51]>> There you go. Now we're in Barala Herto proper.

[00:08:54]>> It's nice around here.

[00:08:55]>> Yeah. Can see why they were fighting over it.

[00:08:59]>> Uh oh, another border.

[00:09:01]>> Oh, right. Here we go.

[00:09:02]>> Oh, this one's got a sign.

[00:09:03]>> Ah, the first one where the sign is still there.

[00:09:08]>> And back in the Netherlands.

[00:09:10]>> Lovely.

[00:09:11]>> We can't be too far off the station now.

[00:09:16]Is that our final destination?

[00:09:18]>> Certainly feels like a good place to get some food.

[00:09:21]>> We're sort of geographically sort of in the middle of the town. Now, >> if you see a walk restaurant, that's the station.

[00:09:35]I believe you will find a walk restaurant on your right just coming up.

[00:09:38]>> I'm looking forward to it. This looks stationy.

[00:09:42]>> Suspiciously stationy. Yeah. Walk. Is that Walk? No.

[00:09:48]>> Yep.

[00:09:53]So, this is the former railway station of Bala Heretto, Bala Nasau, which is now a walk wonderland.

[00:10:04]And that brings us to the end of our journey along the former Barala railway line. But it's only really the end of part one because now we are in Bara. So stay tuned for the next video where we'll be exploring the best of Barala's bonkers borders.

[00:10:19]>> Is this what I think it is? Does that is that actually the border?

[00:10:22]>> And I may or may not be saying the following sentence which at one point was at the center of the bar butter wars. In other words, if you haven't already subscribed to the channel, then now would be a great time to do that.

[00:10:34]And while you're at it, I highly recommend checking out Gab's channel, What on Earth Is This? Because something tells me it might be up your street. And as always, thank you very much for watching and I'll see you soon.