NMBS/SNCB /

The National Railway Company of Belgium, known as the Nationale Maatschappij der Belgische Spoorwegen (help·info) (NMBS) (Dutch) or the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Belges (SNCB) (French) is the Belgian national railway operator. It is usually referred to in English as "Belgian Railways" or the SNCB. It was created in 1926. The SNCB is an autonomous government company. In 2005, the company was split up into three parts: Infrabel, which manages the railway infrastructure, network operations and network access, the public railway operator SNCB itself to manage the freight (B-Cargo) and passenger services, and SNCB-Holding, which owns both public companies and supervises the collaboration between them. Essentially, this was a move to facilitate future liberalisation of railway freight and passenger services in agreement with European regulations. Several freight operators have since received access permissions for the Belgian network. In February 2011, SNCB Logistics began operating as a separate business. In 2008 the SNCB carried 207 million passengers a total of 8,676 million passenger-kilometres over a network of 3,536 kilometres (of which 2,950 km are electrified, mainly