Small Limburg train station named the country’s favorite
Klimmen-Ransdaal train station is Netherlands residents' favorite train station. The small station on the Zuid-Limburg Heuvellandlijn scored 8.3 out of 10 on NS and ProRail’s annual Station Experience Monitor. Station Schin op Geul came in second place and Valkenburg in third - both also on the Heuvellandlijn.
Travelers especially appreciate Klimmen-Ransdaal’s beautiful location in the hilly landscape and in a monumental building from 1913, which they can enjoy in the restaurant and terrace on the platform.
Of the large train stations, Rotterdam Central is the top rated, even making it into the top 10. Rotterdam Central Station ranked 6th in the Netherlands with a score of 8.0. Travelers described it as a nice, bright, and well-arranged station. Utrecht Central scored 7.8 and is the only other Central Station to make it into the top 25 in 23rd place. Amsterdam Central scored 7.5, and Den Haag Central scored 7.6.
The lowest-ranked station in the Netherlands is Zwaluwe station in Noord-Brabant. It scored the only “unsatisfactory” rating on the monitor at 5.2. The biggest climber in the ranking over the past five years is Driebergen-Zeist station. In 2017, travelers scored this station a 5.2. Last year it got a 7,8 from travelers. The station and area around it underwent major renovations in recent years.
According to NS and ProRail, travelers were again slightly more satisfied with their stations last year than the year before. They gave train stations an average score of 7.32 last year, compared to 7.31 in 2021. In 2016, it was still 6.94.
“The fact that the rating for stations has been rising for seven years now shows that we are well in line with the wishes of our passengers,” said Femke Woudstra, director of Station Management and Exploitation at NS. “Stations are no longer just the place where you wait for the train. They have become an extension of the city and its surroundings.”
I&O Research surveyed 85,000 train travelers about their experiences with the train stations in the Netherlands for the Station Experience Monitor 2022.
