Netherlands - General Information

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Country Name

Netherlands (Nederland)

National Railway System

Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) is the principal passenger carrier, which operates through various subsidiary companies, including:

  • NS Reizigers - Domestic passenger services
  • NS Hispeed - International passenger services

Thalys services are managed jointly with the French, German and Belgian railways.

ProRail owns and manages the infrastructure and is responsible for traffic control and capacity allocation, under the authority of the minister of transport. IVW, part of the Ministry of Transport, is responsible for safety and rolling stock certification.

There is no longer a national freight operator. The former NS freight operation has been sold and is a subsidiary of DB Schenker (see below). Open access freight operators have a considerable market share. Some of the more important freight operators currently seen on Netherlands tracks are DB Schenker Rail Nederland, ACTS Nederland, ERS Railways, Rotterdam Rail Feeding and Captrain Benelux (SNCF).

Official Website

www.ns.nl

Language

Dutch

Currency

Euro

UIC code

Numeric 84; alpha NL

Timetable

Journey Planner

Downloadable Timetable

http://ns.nl/cs/Satellite/reizigers/plan-uw-reis. Then go to "Nieuwe dienstregeling 2011" and choice of groups of table numbers (“Trajecten/Trajectnummers”).

Printed Timetable

NS no longer publishes a printed timetable. The 2009-2010 issue of the Spoorboekje was the last.

Engineering Information

www.ns.nl/werktrajecten/index.form in Dutch only.

Maps

The printed Spoorkaart van Nederland is no longer available. Prorail provides electronic maps: a general overview (see page 63) and a detailed geographical map. Sporenplan has a series of track plans.

Gauge

Standard.

Electrification

1500 V dc. New high-speed lines and the Betuwe trunk freight line between Rotterdam and Germany are electrified at 25 kV 50 Hz. In the long term, large-scale conversion to 25 kV 50 Hz is envisaged.

Rule of the road

Right, but most lines are reversibly signalled. The following lines have left-hand running:

  • the high speed line from Rotterdam Lombardijen (where there is a flying crossover) to the Belgian border
  • the fast lines between Utrecht Centraal and Bilthoven; there is a flying crossover west of Bilthoven
  • from Roosendaal to the Belgian border
  • from Maastricht to the Belgian border

Other Railways

The line from Enschede to the German border (- Gronau), physically separate from the rest of the system, is operated by PEG to Dortmund and by DB Regio to Münster.

The German based Bentheimer Eisenbahn owns and operates its trunk line from Bentheim to the border at Laarwald and a further 2 km on to Coevorden. The line is freight only; there has never been any significant border crossing passenger traffic, but freight has regained importance in recent times. Coevorden effectively serves as a German rail bridgehead into the Netherlands, traffic mainly consisting of containers that are subsequently road-hauled into the northern provinces.

Keyrail, an infrastructure manager rather than an operator, manages the port lines (freight only) in Rotterdam and provides train paths between Maasvlakte West and Emmerich via the Betuwe trunk freight line.

Private operators have franchises to work a number of local passenger services over NS lines, thus:

  • Arriva Nederland: Leeuwarden - Harlingen, Leeuwarden - Stavoren, Leeuwarden - Groningen, Groningen - Roodeschool/Delfzijl, Groningen - Nieuweschans - Leer, Dordrecht - Geldermalsen.
  • Connexxion: Amersfoort - Ede-Wageningen.
  • Euregiobahn: Heerlen - Landgraaf - Herzogenrath - Aachen.
  • Syntus: Arnhem - Tiel, Arnhem - Winterswijk, Zutphen - Winterswijk, Almelo - Mariënberg (on behalf of Connexxion), Zutphen - Hengelo - Oldenzaal.
  • Veolia: Nijmegen - Venlo - Roermond, Maastricht Randwijck - Heerlen - Kerkrade.

More local services are to be franchised over the next few years, but a uniform ticketing system, including NS and all franchisees, is being retained.

Tourist Lines

A list of Tourist & Museum Railways and Tramways in English is available on the Historisch Railvervoer Nederland (HRN) website.

Metro

Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Randstad: Den Haag – Rotterdam.

Trams

Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rotterdam, Utrecht.

Recent and future changes

Extensive works are under way or recently completed to increase line capacity. These include realignment and quadrupling of lines and construction of flyovers at junctions.

The Hemboog curve opened in 2003, providing a direct connection between the Zaandam and Schiphol lines. The Utrechtboog curve opened in 2006, providing a direct connection between the Utrecht and Schiphol lines and bypassing Duivendrecht station to the southwest. Approval has been given for the upgrading of Zuidbroek to Veendam (Groningen province) to start, with a Groningen to Veendam passenger service planned from December 2011.

The Betuwe line trunk freight railway from Rotterdam to Emmerich opened for traffic in June 2007 but in mid 2008 was still only seeing limited use. Since October 2008 it is fully operational with 4 slots per hour each way.

The Sloelijn, a new electrified freight line to the Vlissingen port area, branching off the Rossendaal-Vlissingen main line near Lewedorp, opened 8 October 2008, replacing a former local line retained for this traffic.

In May 2009, ProRail awarded a contract to The Hanza Rail Team consortium for the construction of a 50 km-long new line, the Hanzelijn connecting Lelystad and Zwolle. It will use Alstom's ATB system and Atlas signalling system, which is compatible with the ERTMS Level 2 standards. It is due to open to open to public service on 12 December 2012.

Randstadrail is a new light rail system connecting the tramways of Den Haag and the Rotterdam metro. The Den Haag CS - Leidschendam-Voorburg - Rotterdam Hofplein/Zoetermeer line has been removed from the national rail network. The system suffered serious initial problems: at present, Den Haag trams operate to Zoetermeer on 3 routes and Den Haag CS - Rotterdam Hofplein line is operated by Rotterdam metro trains. The tunnel connecting this line to Rotterdam CS will open in 2011, whereupon the Hofplein terminus will close.

NS Hispeed launched Amsterdam - Rotterdam passenger services over HSL-Zuid on 7 September 2009, using electric locomotives and rakes of ICR coaches at a maximum speed of 160 km/h as an interim solution. Trains are initially running from Amsterdam Centraal, pending a switch to Amsterdam Zuid once its development has progressed further. Thalys services were diverted onto HSL-Zuid from 13 December 2009, running at up to 160 km/h between Schiphol and Rotterdam and at 300 km/h from south of Rotterdam to Antwerpen. 300 km/h running with ERTMS level 2 on the Rotterdam - Schiphol section will start in December 2010 whereupon an hourly Amsterdam - Rotterdam - Breda service will be added. The high speed Fyra service to Belgium, using the much delayed V250 electric units, is due to start in December 2011.

The Utrecht - Amsterdam-Bijlmer section has been upgraded to 4 tracks. The Woerden - Harmelen - Utrecht section has been upgraded to 4 tracks, apart from the bridge over the Amsterdam-Rhine canal at Utrecht. Utrecht - Houten Zuid is being upgraded to 4 tracks. Diveunders will be built at Arnhem and Amersfoort to remove conflicting train movements.

In summer 2009 NS experimented for 5 days with "no timetable" operation on the Amsterdam - Eindhoven line, running 6 IC trains, 6 stopping trains and 2 freights per hour. No problems were encountered, so it will be repeated over a 4 week period in September 2010 but, unlike in 2009, with no extra staff or rolling stock rostered to cover any problems. If it is a success, it will be implemented on this route and also by 2020 on Arnhem - Utrecht - Schiphol, Schiphol - Almere - Lelystad and Breda - Rotterdam - Amsterdam.

In December 2012 Arriva will take over operation of the Zutphen - Winterswijk, Zutphen - Apeldoorn, Arnhem - Winterswijk and Arnhem - Tiel lines from Syntus/NS and of Zwolle - Emmen from NS. In 2013 it will take over Almelo - Mariënberg from Connexxion.

The "Iron Rhine" freight line between Roermond and Dalheim (Germany) is planned to reopened for traffic between Antwerpen and the Ruhr. However this has been delayed by a dispute between the Dutch and Belgian governments, which has gone to arbitration. Recently the governments concluded an agreement but no clear timetable is defined yet.

Special notes

Many trains worked by multiple units split en route to serve more than one destination. External displays may show the destination of each portion; newer train sets are provided with internal displays as well. The number of each unit is displayed prominently in each carriage and when trains divide public address announcements usually refer to these to inform passengers where each unit is going.

All stations are equipped with ticket machines which accept coins and Netherlands bank cards. Foreign Maestro cards (but not Visa) are also accepted at all machines. Credit cards are accepted only at Amsterdam Centraal and Schiphol Airport. All machines offer domestic tickets and some provide international tickets as well. Booking offices at small stations have almost been closed. A surcharge is payable at booking offices when buying a ticket which is available from ticket machines.

Strippenkaarten (strip tickets) have now been phased out in the Amsterdam and Rotterdam areas. Only the smart card OV Chipkaart is now accepted for travel on public transport. See www.ov-chipkaart.nl/?taal=en. The smart card is used in parallel with the strippenkaart in most of the rest of country but paper tickets will be discontinued everywhere in April 2011.

Trein-Taxi tickets include a taxi from/to the railway station for a fixed fare. The service is available in most mid-size towns, but not in Utrecht, Amsterdam, Den Haag and Rotterdam. When riding on single or return tickets, trein-taxi tickets should be bought at the departure station. For the return trip by taxi, tickets are best bought in advance, but the taxi driver sells tickets with a small surcharge.

The freight line to Terneuzen is accessible only from Gent in Belgium.

See also