100 year old LNER carriage buried in Antwerp

Builders excavating land in the Noordkasteel district of Antwerp as part of the building of a ring road must have thought that they has stumbled into an episode of the X Files.

As they dug deep, the unexpectedly struck a large object and having previously encountered munitions and other metal objects they assumed it would be something similar but called in archaeologists to check it out.

Mysterious discovery

Much to their surprise, what they uncovered was the remains of a British LNER (London North Eastern Railway) train goods carriage and from its colour and notations on its side they were able to identify that it would have been in service in the 1930s.

Hoping to find out more, they excavated the surrounding area but unfortunately it was in such fragile condition that despite doing all they could to preserve it, the carriage (which was the precursor of today’s containers) simply fell in on itself and was destroyed.

How did it get there?

So far, no-one has been able to come up with a feasible explanation of why a British railway carriage found itself abandoned in Flanders almost 100 years ago.