Oostende –
The consultation between the Ostend mayor Bart Tommelein (Open VLD) and the NMBS about the extra trains to the coast has been unsuccessful. “The NMBS is casual, they have no plan. This is how they create new corona growth sources, ”says Tommelein.
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Mayor Tommelein van Oostende says he is “frustrated and disillusioned” after consultation with the top SNCB and Infrabel. Last Friday, the situation at the station got completely out of hand when thousands of people were waiting to board a train.
Tommelein wants not that the railway company puts in additional trains to the coast before a registration system is introduced. Only those who reserve their place should be allowed on such a train. SNCB has already stated that this cannot be achieved in the short term.
–Photo: BELGA
“Inquiries with specialists teach me that you can set this up perfectly in a few days,” says Tommelein. “We have such a system for our beaches ourselves. Amusement parks even had to have such a system before they could open it again. But apparently the largest public society in our country cannot do that. ”
New hotbeds
From Wednesday, the NMBS wants to send ten extra trains a day to the coast. According to spokesman Dimitri Temmerman, they just help to spread the people over different couples. That frustrates Tommelein immensely. “They send tens of thousands of people a day to the sea, but they have no way of knowing who they are, where they are, how and when they will return. They are creating new corona fireplaces, and I don’t want to take any responsibility for that: I don’t want those trains. ”
Tommelein has submitted his complaint to the West Flemish governor Anne Martens. “I appeal to the National Security Council to intervene here,” he says.
It is not the first time that coastal mayors have clashed with NMBS. The end of June the mayor of Knokke-Heist, Leopold Lippens, also threatened to stop trains because, according to him, NMBS / SNCB “exported corona from Brussels to the coast.”
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