Brussels Travel Forum

Trying to get from Brussels to Beersel via public transport on Sunday. I found that Tram 55 to Uccle Calevoet is supposed to enable a connection to bus 154. Cannot find a schedule for bus 154.

Is this a regular bus line?

Where do you need to be in Beersel? There is also a train station in Beersel.
Train times can be found on www.nmbs.be
You can also go to www.delijn.be which is the website of the company running busses in Flanders. On this site you can enter an addresses, and you will get detailed instructions on how to get there.

Trying to get to the restaurant/brewery 3 FONTEINEN (for dinner and a beer).

I did spend about 2 hrs last night trying to get a route from: http://www.delijn.be/index.htm

I could not get it to come up with a routing. Of course the challenge is that the web-site seems to be in Flemish. While I can generally figure out parts of what it wants me to do I just get errors (obviously I can't read the errors).

I've also tried the STIB web-site.

http://www.stib.be/horaires-dienstregeling.html?l=en

I can get it to give me routes but it apparently doesn't include this bus 154.

On this map they show bus 154 going to Beersel (one of the restaurants in town gives it as a direction),

http://www.stib.be/irj/go/km/docs/STIB-MIVB/INTERNET/attachments/Plan_reseau/plan03092007.pdf

I'm pretty sure the trains do not run to Beersel on Sunday (certainly not all day).

I just want to make sure there is a bus running on Sunday evening before we wind up standing at a bus stop waiting for a bus that is never coming.

Ok, figured out the the trick to make the site work.

The link to pdf version of bus 154 schedule (for anyone that needs it).

http://www.delijn.be/reisinformatie/dienstregeling/index.htm?dci-src-req=pdf%2Fbrab%2FBRABANT%2F27%2F3154080107.pdf&dci-host-req=http%3A%2F%2Fappl.delijn.be%2Finfopdf%2F&dci-uuid=1194997211052

There is actually an easier way to find out how to get where you want to be.

The new trip planner of the Belgian Railways also contains local transport, and is able to plan a trip from door to door.
Just go to:
http://hari.b-holding.be/Hafas/bin/query.exe/en
Type "Brussel" in the "from" line or if you know the address you're leaving from enter that.
And type "Beersel, Herman Teirlinckplein 3" (which is the address of the "Drie Fontijnen") in the to line...

1. There ARE actually trains to Beersel on Sundays, all day: either from Bruxelles-Midi via Halle (about twice an hour, starting from Midi at 23 and 44 minutes past the hour) or I am surprised to see (because I thought the station was closed on Sundays) from Mérode e.g. at 10.29; note that there is both a metro and a railway station at Mérode, trains call at Delta, Boondaal, Sint-Job and Moensberg before Beersel, final destination Halle (and these trains start at Vilvoorde, if this works it will show you the route: http://hari.b-holding.be/Hafas/bin/traininfo.exe/en/37218/13897/27682/1436/80?seqnr=3&ident=60.0515612.1195161264&date=19/11/07&station_evaId=8811197&station_type=dep&journeyStartIdx=5&journeyEndIdx=10&backLink=tp&
2. STIB is Brussels City Transport i.e. trams buses and metros within the city limit; Beersel is outside Brussels! Hence it is not served by STIB but by suburban buses run by TEC (if they end up in Wallonie) or De Lijn (Flanders).
3. You can use the Belgian Railways site http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/ for information on trains, buses etc. throughout Belgium. For example if you put in Bruxelles-Midi as departure it will only give you one option as written this way, this can only be the railway station (the metro station, for example, being just called Midi); whereas for Beersel you will get a number of options: the railway station is Beersel (B) - for Belgian Railways, then T refers to the name of a TEC bus stop and DL to a De Lijn bus stop.
4. Unfortunately the De Lijn website is one of the most user-unfriendly I have ever come across, although with a bit of local knowledge it is possible to figure things out. You may find it easier to use Planitram, http://www.planitram.be/EN/tdl/ENtecdl.html - especially as it is in English.

We like to stay in Beersel. This year we will likely arrive over a weekend.
Using the links above, it appears that trains do not run on weekends from Beersel into Brussels. Does anyone know any different (for sure?)

We'd like to go into Brussels in the morning (with our dog) and return to Beersel in the evening.

You cannot have consulted the timetable correctly, or else you are discounting the fact that you have to change trains in Halle (you don't need to put this in, the system will tell you). There are plenty of trains on Sundays from Bruxelles-Midi to Beersel via Halle, and vice versa, leaving Beersel at 05, 24 and 45 minutes past each hour. If all you are getting is a couple of trains early in the morning, it's probably because you didn't set the time properly: in which case all you need to do is click on "later" (above "products" which is the last header in the orange boxes), as many times as you need to display the time period you want.