The Mechelen-Dendermonde railway line - the third in the country - opened on 2 January 1837. Dendermonde’s first station, in what is Stationsstraat today, was a wooden building. In 1849 it was replaced with a Dutch Classical building that now houses the ‘Fietspunt’. A new station was built on present-day Statieplein in 1880-'81. It was another timber construction because, with the threat of imminent war, building in brick and stone was prohibited in the vicinity of the fortifications. Burned to the ground on the orders of the stationmaster at the outbreak of the Second World War, it was replaced by the present station building in 1942-43.
