Dutch railway NS promises major improvements in 2025 with 1,600 more trains weekly

Dutch national railway NS announced plans to dramatically improve service next year by adding an additional 1,600 trains per week to the timetable in 2025. The improvements include overall increases during rush hour and weekend evenings, as well as more trains throughout the day to connect Schiphol with Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Arnhem.

Additionally, the NS wants increases on the route between The Hague and Rotterdam and a doubling of trains to and from Belgium. Because of construction at Amsterdam Centraal Station, the Intercity Direct service will move to Amsterdam-Zuid.

The renovation work happening at and around Amsterdam Central Station in the coming years means that the station will have fewer platforms available and, therefore, less capacity for trains. To ensure that this does not affect Schiphol Airport’s accessibility, NS is launching the Airport Sprinter. This train will run every 7.5 minutes between Hoofddorp, Schiphol Airport, and Amsterdam CS seven days a week and for most of the day.

NS also plans to run the ten-minute train between Rotterdam and Schiphol and Schiphol and Arnhem all day from Monday to Thursday and restore the 15-minute service with Sprimters between Leiden Central Station and Schiphol on Fridays.

In the new timetable, the Intercity trains on the high-speed line between Breda, Rotterdam, and Schiphol will run to Amsterdam-Zuid instead of Amsterdam CS. There will be more trains running through the city during rush hour, in the evenings, and over weekends. NS is returning the 15-minute service between Amsterdam CS, Weesp, and Almere, between Alkmaar and Amsterdam CS, and between Utrecht and Woerden. The rail company will also run the first train earlier on many routes and the last train later.

On Friday and Saturday evenings, the Intercity between Amsterdam, Haarlem, Leiden, and The Hague will run every 15 minutes until 00:30 a.m. “That means significant improvement for travelers in this part of the Randstad in the evening.” Running the 10-minute Rotterdam-Schiphol and Schiphol-Arnhem trains more will also significantly improve the accessibility of Amsterdam Bijlmer Arena station - the thoroughfare for many events in the Johan Cruijff ArenA and Ziggo Dome, among others.

NS will run its new, faster Intercity trains on the high-speed line from Rotterdam to Lelystad and Amersfoort. Six sprinters per hour will run between Rotterdam and The Hague, and there will be more trains in the early morning and late evening. On Fridays, the Intercity trains between Rotterdam and Utrecht and between Utrecht and The Hague will run every 15 minutes from the morning rush hour instead of from noon.

NS and the Belgian public transport company NMBS are doubling the number of trains running between the Netherlands and Brussels from 16 to 32 per day in the new timetable. There will also be a new, fast train that will cut about 45 minutes off the current travel time. The stations between Amsterdam Zuid and Lelystad will also have a direct connection with Brussels and Antwerp once an hour.

“Train passengers are currently experiencing inconvenience from less available equipment and personnel, speed restrictions, and necessary work. Although this new timetable cannot correct all the problems on the track, we have still been able to implement a large number of improvements,” NS CEO Wouter Koolmees said.

NS’s biggest challenge going forward is still the high-speed line. Many new speed restrictions were recently implemented on the line over safety concerns, and the delivery of the new Intercity trains ICNG is taking longer than hoped. Problems on the HSL can ripple to more places in the Netherlands now that NS is planning to run more trains on it. But, according to the rail company, “the alternative - limiting the use of the HSL - will cause bigger problems because NS cannot continue to run the current number of trains or even has to run fewer trains around Amsterdam” due to the renovations at Amsterdam CS.

ProRail is also planning more work on the track next year, and scarcity in the labor market remains a problem, the rail company said. “We, therefore, continuously recruit new colleagues, especially mechanics.”