Nine months without trains between Leiden-Utrecht is impossible, critics say

Politicians in Zuid-Holland are “very upset” that train travelers between Leiden and Utrecht will have to wait for months for the construction of a railway bridge to be completed. ProRail announced recently that they are going to replace the railway bridge by Alphen aan den Rijn at the end of 2026. The project will take nine months to complete.

"It is incomprehensible that an important train connection in this densely populated area will be lost for almost a year, and all the consequences will be for the travelers between Leiden and Utrecht,” said GroenLinks-PvdA, BBB, CDA, VVD, SP, D66, ChristenUnie, and PVV.

Those eight parties, that have 41 of the 55 seats in Zuid-Holland have sent written questions regarding this. "Is the provincial government prepared to bang its fist on the table in The Hague and do everything it can to keep the duration of the work and the inconvenience as short as possible?"

ProRail claims that the single-track bridge over the Gouwe River needs replacing. The construction of the swing bridge, which opens an average of eighteen times a day to allow ships to pass, no longer meets the standards.

"This defect is slowly increasing, and the situation is therefore not stable," according to the railway manager. "At some point, the bridge could get stuck." ProRail added that the bridge is safe for the time being, but they have decided to do "extra monitoring" after an inspection. In two years, the swing bridge will be replaced by the same type of bridge.

Eight Zuid-Holland coalition and opposition parties think the nine-month construction with no trains going on this route is “unreasonably long.” ProRail has said that they are striving “to minimize the impact of this closure as much as possible.”

The railway manager is working with the NS to look at “alternative transport.” Work on replacing the railway bridge will start at the end of 2026 and will be finished in the summer of 2027, according to ProRail.

Last Friday, for reasons still unknown, an inland vessel collided with the half-open bridge at Alphen aan den Rijn. As a result, train traffic was halted for hours. Shipping was affected by the collision for days. The railway bridge could only be reopened for boats on the Gouwe on Tuesday morning.