NS takes first step towards returning to normal train schedule

Rail company NS is taking the first steps to scale back up to its regular timetable. From Monday, all intercity trains will run again between Utrecht and The Hague and between Utrecht and Rotterdam.

Now that the peak of the Omicron coronavirus wave seems to have passed, fewer and fewer train staff are at home in quarantine or with the coronavirus. So more trains can start running again, NS said.

Next week, on March 21, NS will take the biggest scale-up step. From then on, almost all trains will run again. The most prominent exception to this is the 10-minute trains. They will return at the start of April when six instead of four trains will run on the 10-minute routes. 

NS has been running fewer trains since February 7 due to staff shortages caused by the coronavirus. The timetable was scaled down in steps in the weeks that followed.