Cramer himself retired from the EP in He produced an update on the work in as well PDF here. I have also written a Twitter thread about these links here. Many of the maps I use are from the wonderful Open Railway Map , with some amendments as necessary.
If something is incorrect or missing do let me know in the comments — I will happily update the blog post as necessary! RAL briedisunrepshe did some excellent work helping me get to the bottom of this on Twitter — see this and this. Cramer talks of 20km of track missing here, and filling this gap would allow the completion of a km long route between Belgium and France.
His update underlines that there is a cross-border bus route operating here, and that the Ardennes cycle route now uses part of the alignment. This is what it looks like on Open Railway Map:. A few things are starting to stir here — to re-open a route that last ran regularly in The line on the French side has also recently been partially modernised.
Conclusion: eventually something might happen here, and there is the consensus a rail connection makes sense. While Djebbari and Gilkinet cited Givet — Dinant in their recent declaration see above , it was another missing connection — Mons — Valenciennes — that they cited as a second route to re-open.
Dunkerque — De Panne did not get a mention. Cramer states that 18km of track are missing, and this is the area on Open Railway Map:. This looks to be an obvious candidate for re-opening — the Belgian coast is well connected — both inland with numerous rail connections, and also along the coast with the Kusttram. At the moment a bus connects De Panne and Dunkerque — and it is free to use.
