Essen station sits on the Antwerp–Roosendaal line, the oldest international rail link in continental Europe, opened in 1854 to connect the port of Antwerp with the Dutch railways. The station building is a modest brick affair, recently restored, but for railway enthusiasts the line itself is the draw.
Trains run regularly between Antwerp and the Dutch border town of Roosendaal, with Essen as the last Belgian stop. The customs and migration facilities that once made this a significant border crossing have largely vanished, but the old goods sheds and signal boxes give a sense of the route's busy past.