Designing the Nation: The Belgian Railway Project, 1830–1837

In contrast to the strategy of most European countries, the first railways in Belgium were not introduced during an experimental phase with local lines, but conceived as a coherent infrastructural frame facilitating transnational transport, as well as unifying and injecting Belgian regions with industrialization. This was inspired by Saint-Simonian ideals. As the Belgian railway network was the translation of both national and international aspirations, this article ties into the growing body of literature on networked technologies operating on these geopolitical scales. The history of network planning in Belgium complements this literature on (inter)national railway systems by focusing on the earlier nineteenth century. Methodologically, the network is examined from the viewpoint of the “heterogeneous engineering” that produced the infrastructure plans, thus going beyond the traditional view by using the material dimension of railway design to analyze the conception of infrastructure as actual nation-building, or the organization of territory and society.