ASVi museum, Heritage streetcar in Belgium.
The ASVi museum occupies the site of the former Thuin-Ouest state railway station and is run by a volunteer association founded in 1972. Its collection covers the Belgian Vicinal narrow-gauge network, and an operating metre-gauge line leaves the depot, follows the old SNCB line 109 trackbed, then runs along Avenue de la Couture and over the Sambre towards Lobbes.
The ASVi association was founded in 1972 to save and restore trams of the former Société nationale des chemins de fer vicinaux. It began running tourist trams between Lobbes and Thuin in 1978 and took over the line when passenger service ended on 31 December 1983. The museum opened in 2004, and a 3 km extension to Biesme-sous-Thuin followed in August 2010.
The line's name comes from the Vicinal, Belgium's former nationwide narrow-gauge network. Volunteers of the ASVi, founded in 1972, run the museum and trams themselves. Each year they hold a Tram Festival around 15 August, Heritage Days on the second weekend of September and a Nocturne on the last Sunday of October.
Trams run every weekend from April to October, diesel or electric, with steam on certain days. The line leaves the Thuin depot, the former Thuin-Ouest state railway station, follows Avenue de la Couture past the cemetery and crosses the Sambre. Three themed events are held yearly: the Tram Festival on the 15 August weekend, Heritage Days on the second weekend of September and the Nocturne on the last Sunday of October.
The collection holds a PCC streetcar from a first series of 24 cars built for Belgium in 1950, transferred to Belgrade in 1960; one was brought back to Belgium in 1986. The line's northern section along the RN 559 is one of the last electrified roadside tram sections left in Belgium.
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