Damaged overhead lines between Hoofddorp and Leiden left three trains stranded on Thursday, ProRail reported. Around 1,400 passengers were evacuated. The stranded trains are currently being towed away.
"The contractor is currently inspecting the damage", ProRail said. "How long the repairs will take is not yet known." No trains are currently running between Hoofddorp and Leiden. "ProRail regrets the inconvenience for all travelers on this route."
There are far too few spaces for bicycles on the train to keep up with the growing number of public transit users that travel with their bikes, according to cyclists' union Fietsersbond and travelers' association Rover. They call on NS to take measures, especially now that cycling is increasingly being encouraged, the Telegraaf reports.
Dutch rail company NS and its Austrian counterpart OBB are working on an overnight train connection between Vienna and Amsterdam. OBB aims to run its 'Nightjet' trains between the two cities three times per week from 2021, the Telegraaf reports.
The train would be an extension of the OBB's current Nightjet passenger route between Vienna and Düsseldorf. The firm is also expected to announce service to Brussels.
If millions of euros aren't invested into upgrading railways and stations between Haarlem and Zandvoort, trains will no longer run to big events in Zandvoort like the Formula 1, NS and ProRail indicated according to a letter Haarlem alderman Robert Berkhout sent to the city council. According to a ProRail spokesperson, this is not an ultimatum, just an explanation of the actual situation, RTL Nieuws reports.
The public transit sector, cities and transport regions drew up long-term plans to make sure train transport can cope with the strong growth in passengers in the future. At least 20 billion euros will be needed for their plans, which span from 2020 towards 2040, the Telegraaf reports based on wish lists from the sector.
A train was stopped at Rotterdam Central Station on Monday because of a woman wearing a niqab. According to the police, NS inspectors asked for police aid because the woman refused to show her face to the inspectors so that they could check whether she had a valid ticket. The woman was not fined, NOS reports.
Dutch rail company NS will start discussions about a compensation scheme for the relatives of deported resistance fighters in the Second World War. The first meeting with representatives of this group is scheduled for October 3rd, Trouw reports.
In the summer months of June, July and August almost 917 thousand people took a train from the Netherlands to a foreign country, NS International announced on Thursday. That is a 13 percent growth in passenger numbers compared to the summer of last year, NU.nl reports.
The most overcrowded train in the country runs between Oss and 's-Hertogenbosch Oost, according to NS. This sprinter that departs at 7:43 a.m. is around 40 percent more crowded than the maximum capacity of the train every day, with the exception of the weekend. The train that runs on this rout at 8:31 a.m. is also very popular, running at 28 percent over capacity every day, NOS reports.
NS expects a record number of 36.7 million passengers in September, 1.7 million more than the same month last year. The rail company is taking various measures to cope with the increasing crowds.
Two trains were set on fire at the train station in Haarlem on Monday night. Bottles of combustible material were found on both trains and the police suspect arson.
The first fire was reported at 8:30 p.m. and had already been extinguished when the police arrived, the police said in a statement. The second fire was reported at 11:30 p.m. and was extinguished with the help of the fire department.
NS will soon start selling train tickets through companies like car-rentals, tour operators and hotels. According to the Dutch railway company, it is the first transporter in Europe to fully outsource part of its ticket sales to third parties, Financieele Dagblad reports.
The new NS partners will purchase train kilometers from the rail company and then re-sell them to their customers at their own discretion and price. The customer can then use the train through an app or fuel card, for example. In this way NS hopes to lure car users to the train.
After months of puzzling and work, ProRail announced its new train timetable for 2020. The main change is that more trains will run next year, also outside the Randstad. According to the rail manager, a new planning system means that the space on the track can be used even more efficiently next year, NOS reports.
Travelers association Rover wants rail manager ProRail and rail company NS to do more to make sure customers are inconvenienced as little as possible during rail works and breakdowns. The association made a number of recommendations on how to achieve this, including improving information provision to travelers, compensation for inconvenience, and using longer trains.
Travelers chose the main station in Groningen as the most beautiful train station in the Netherlands, in a poll ran by NS on social media. Amsterdam Central Station came in 4th place.
Of the over 10 thousand people who voted, over 33 percent voted for Groningen. The historic station in Valkenburg came in second place with 16 percent of the votes, followed by Rotterdam Central Station with 14 percent, Amsterdam Central Station with 11 percent, and Utrecht Central Station with 9 percent.
Next month NS will start experimenting with advertisements on the information screens in its trains. "We regularly receive requests from advertisers", a spokesperson for the rail company said to NOS. "The screens in the train are a sought-after place."
The advertising in trains will "fit in with our policy and with the travel experience", according to the spokesperson. "That's why we only want to show advertisements that match our brand", he said. "No ads about explicit things, but ads that appeal to a large group of people."
The compensation arrangement NS made for victims of the Holocaust and their relatives should also apply to resistance fighters, according to association Children of Resistance Participants 1940-45. NS is using double standards and "forgot" the families of Dutch resistance fighters, chairman Henk Mreijen said to the Telegraaf.
ProRail wants to ban smoking at all train stations in the Netherlands. If the rail manager has its way, all smoking zones will disappear at the some 400 stations within the next two years, a spokesperson said to the Telegraaf.
ProRail receives many complaints from travelers who are bothered by smokers, the spokesperson said. The company therefore does not want to wait for a national smoking ban. "That's why we take the lead ourselves." The rail manager is currently working on convincing all parties involved to support the plan.
NS is running fewer intercity trains on Friday due to the heat. Prolonged exposure to the high temperatures means that trains need to be serviced more often, and that the maintenance takes longer to perform, a spokesperson for the Dutch rail company said to AD.
NS is running fewer trains on three busy routes - the high speed line between Amsterdam, Schiphol and Rotterdam, between Amsterdam and Eindhoven, and between Eindhoven and Heerlen. The rail company is dealing with capacity problems because trains were exposed to the heat for a long time on Wednesday and therefore need extra maintenance on Thursday, an NS spokesperson said to AD.
With extremely hot weather expected in the coming days, rail manager ProRail and public works department Rijkswaterstaat are taking extra measures to ensure that traffic flows as smoothly as possible. Temperatures above 35 degrees are expected, which can cause problems on both the road and the tracks. A number of events are also taking measures, NOS and NU.nl report.
An NS conductor and train driver had the opportunity to prove their commitment to their clients recently when a woman from Assen accidentally got on the wrong train and therefore risked missing her surgery. The conductor rose to the challenge and arranged for the intercity train to make an extra stop in Hoogeveen, so that the woman could get to the hospital on time, AD reports.
Dutch rail company NS is looking into building thousands of homes above the railways around Utrecht Central Station, Amsterdam Sloterdijk, and The Hague Central Station. NS wants to use the money it expects to earn with this to modernize the train stations, RTL Nieuws reports.
More and more Dutch people are taking the train. NS saw its number of passengers increase by nearly 3 percent last year. On average, 1.3 million people took the train each working day last year, 100 thousand more than in 2016, AD reports.
Remarkably, the number of weekend travelers saw a stronger increase than weekday travelers. On Saturdays and Sundays, 4.2 percent more people took the train in 2018 than in 2017. During the weekdays, passenger numbers increased by 2.2 percent. That brings NS' total passenger growth for 2018 to 2.7 percent.
