Herbesthal railway station

Herbesthal station, opened in 1843 on the border between the Kingdom of Belgium and the Kingdom of Prussia, holds the distinction of being Europe's oldest international border station. For over seven decades it was operated by the Prussian State Railways, until the Treaty of Versailles transferred the Eupen-Malmedy region — and the station with it — to Belgium in 1920, handing operations to the Belgian national railway. This layered national identity, switching from Prussian to Belgian administration overnight, makes Herbesthal an unusually tangible monument to the post-WWI redrawing of European borders. The station is no longer in service today, and the silent building draws railway historians and urban explorers to the German-speaking corner of eastern Belgium.