Background information:
In the Netherlands we have many water-rich landscapes where it is necessary to use ditches, parallel to the track, to keep the railway embankment sufficiently dry for the required stability. The ditches also prevented people from easily walking onto the track. Since other countries, such as Belgium, have very different ground conditions in many places and therefore do not need railway ditches in many places, concrete barriers were produced at an early stage and on an industrial scale. NMBS has concrete barriers made that can be installed on site as prefab posts and elements. These serve for decades, with very little maintenance, to keep people at a distance from the track. This graceful model was the first to be made on a fairly large scale. But later it was decided to make a simpler model, which can be found in many more places in Belgium. In 2020, people have started here and there to replace the concrete barriers with wire steel ones. At Markenburg they can be found in the theme “Around the platform” (01RHP01).
In the Netherlands we talk about a fence, or if it needs to be a bit neater, a boundary fence. In Flanders people seem to be talking about a closure more quickly. Yet we are all talking about the same thing. On this website we match the name to the location where the model can most often be found, or has been.
