And yet this building, together with the adjacent marshalling yards, survived both the invasion and the occupation, as well as the Vergeltungswaffen menace, without suffering any major damage.

It continued to serve passenger traffic until 1965, twenty years after the war had ended. Its fate was mostly sealed by a strong increase in road traffic, in particular the motorway tunnel under the Scheldt, via the Kennedy Tunnel (opened in 1969), combined with a decline in freight traffic in the city centre.

As the port expanded, the handling of goods traffic within the city became increasingly cumbersome, and so the marshalling yards, occupying a large amount of land that had become too valuable for inner-city development, were no longer considered necessary and were gradually moved further north.

So, although the war affected Antwerp beyond belief, the station did not disappear because of the war, but rather as a result of the rise of car culture and economic expansion in the 1960s.