Even the one steam locomotive in the SNCB's own official heritage collection drably named 29.013 was built in Canada, as Belgium ordered engines from North America to replace the equipment destroyed in World War II.
Niloofar, who is twenty-seven, is a striking woman with a strong face and high cheekbones, and, on the day I met her, at the Parliament, she wore, instead of a burka, a brilliant turquoise shalwar kameez and head scarf all the more noticeable in the assemblage of drably suited and robed male M.