Why did SNCB cancel rush-hour trains during Belgium’s August heatwave?

Belgian rail operator SNCB cancelled several peak-hour trains across the country on Friday, 14 August, as temperatures were forecast to reach 37°C or 38°C in places. The operator said the adaptations were intended to protect passengers and railway staff while limiting the chance that heat-sensitive trains or infrastructure would fail in service. It advised travellers to check the journey planner, avoid peak periods where possible and carry water.

The cancellations concerned P trains, the additional services used to reinforce Belgium’s morning and evening rush hours. These trains usually complete a morning journey, remain parked outside during the day and return for the evening peak. SNCB told BX1 that some are older vehicles without air conditioning, making the long hours in direct heat particularly difficult for passengers, conductors and drivers. The precise list remained available through the operator’s live planner rather than as a permanent, consolidated timetable.

For commuters in Brussels

Place

Brussels

A major employment and rail hub where reduced peak-hour capacity affected commuter flows.

Why it matters

A major employment and rail hub where reduced peak-hour capacity affected commuter flows.

About

The City of Brussels is the largest municipality and historical centre of the Brussels-Capital Region, as well as the capital of the French Community of Belgium, the Flemish Region, and Belgium. The City of Brussels is also the administrative centre of the European Union, as it hosts a number of principal EU institutions in its European Quarter.

Official site ↗View source record ↗

SNCB presented the cancellations as preventive risk management, not as evidence that the network had already suffered a widespread breakdown. Its reasoning extended beyond passenger comfort. According to the operator’s account reported by BX1, overhead electrical wires can sag in extreme heat, while temperatures above 35°C increase stress from rail expansion and the risk of track deformation. Running fewer vulnerable trains also reduces the possibility of passengers becoming stranded between stations during the hottest part of the day.

The Royal Meteorological Institute had placed most of Belgium under an orange heat warning during the episode, with West Flanders the exception, according to contemporaneous reporting by The Brussels Times. Later in August, the institute said Belgium had experienced three official heatwaves during the summer of 2026. Provisional figures through 23 August put the season’s average temperature at 20.3°C, which the institute said was on course to exceed the previous summer record of 19.9°C set in 2018.

The intervention was not unprecedented. During an earlier hot spell in June, SNCB announced that 100 trains a day would be removed temporarily after identifying 200 services operated with non-air-conditioned Sprinter equipment. It said 60% of those services would be covered by newer, air-conditioned Desiro trains. The S5 between Geraardsbergen and Mechelen and the S7 between Halle and Vilvoorde were also reduced to one train an hour during that earlier operation. SNCB described the approach as part of its “public-service mission” to preserve mobility while protecting passengers and employees.

That operational framing differs from the longer-term perspective offered by the European Environment Agency’s Climate-ADAPT platform. It treats heat-related railway disruption as a structural resilience question: networks built for historical conditions must combine operational precautions with heat-resistant equipment, monitoring and investment. The revised EU trans-European transport network policy likewise places greater emphasis on climate resilience, but responsibility for Belgian rolling stock and track operations remains with SNCB and infrastructure manager Infrabel

Organisation

Infrabel

Belgium’s rail infrastructure manager, responsible for tracks, signalling and overhead electrical infrastructure.

Why it matters

Belgium’s rail infrastructure manager, responsible for tracks, signalling and overhead electrical infrastructure.

About

Infrabel is a Belgian government-owned public limited company. It builds, owns, maintains and upgrades the Belgian railway network, makes its capacity available to railway operator companies, and handles train traffic control. The stations are still owned by SNCB/NMBS.

Official site ↗View source record ↗

The two perspectives are complementary but create a legitimate policy tension. SNCB’s short-term priority is to remove equipment when it cannot be used safely; passengers and public-transport advocates are entitled to ask why sufficiently resilient replacement capacity is not yet available throughout a publicly funded network. No passenger organisation or federal mobility ministerial response was identified in the reviewed coverage of the 14 August cancellations, and no verified total for affected trains or travellers was published.

Services returned to their planned pattern after the heat episode, subject to the summer timetable and engineering works. The larger question will persist beyond this Friday’s adaptations: whether repeated precautionary cancellations remain exceptional measures, or become a regular feature of hotter Belgian summers. SNCB’s fleet renewal, Infrabel’s protection of rails and overhead lines, and transparent reporting of heat-related failures will show whether the railway is adapting as quickly as the climate around it.