Railway stations in the Netherlands

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There are 390 railway stations in the Netherlands.

Contents

[edit] Categories

This image shows the standard style of the station nameplate, white on blue, with a white square in the upper-left corner. Note also the track (spoor ) number sign with inverted colors.
This image shows the standard style of the station nameplate, white on blue, with a white square in the upper-left corner. Note also the track (spoor ) number sign with inverted colors.

Stations are divided into three categories. These are, in order of decreasing importance:

  • Intercity stations, where all trains (except, in some cases, international services) call.
  • Rapid train (sneltrein) stations, where rapid and local trains call.
  • The remaining stations, where only local trains (stoptreinen) call.

On many lines, however, there may be only two categories of trains (for example, intercity and local), or just one (local). Furthermore, some local trains – despite being called stoptreinen – do not stop at all stations: two examples are the services from Utrecht Centraal to Almere Oostvaarders and to Geldermalsen.

On the route diagrams printed at the top of station departure sheets (see this example), intercity stations and semi-fast train stations are indicated by the letters IC and S respectively.

[edit] Spelling conventions

The practice in the Netherlands is to write the names of stations serving two communities with a hyphen (corresponding to "and") between the two names, thus: Beek-Elsloo; and to use a space where the second term specifies one of two or more stations serving one community, thus: Alkmaar Noord.

[edit] List of stations, with their official abbreviations

(excluding stations used only during special events)

[edit] A

Almere Centrum
Almere Centrum

[edit] B

[edit] C

[edit] D

Delft
Delft
Den Haag HS
Den Haag HS

[edit] E

Emmen
Emmen

[edit] F

[edit] G

[edit] H

Heemstede-Aerdenhout
Heemstede-Aerdenhout

[edit] I

[edit] K

[edit] L

[edit] M

[edit] N

[edit] O

[edit] P

[edit] R

[edit] S

[edit] T

[edit] U

  • Uitgeest (Utg)
  • Uithuizen (Uhz)
  • Uithuizermeeden (Uhm)
  • Usquert (Ust)
  • Utrecht Centraal (Ut)
    • Lunetten (Utl)
    • Overvecht (Uto)
    • Terwijde (Utt) - new station in 2005; the name plates at the station platforms read "Utrecht-Terwijde", but the dash seems to be a mistake (see above)
    • Zuilen (to be opened april 2007)

[edit] V

Valkenburg
Valkenburg

[edit] W

[edit] Z

[edit] Termini

Below are stations with tracks only in one direction (or, with the indication *, have tracks in the other direction only for a tourist line, a freight line or to a shunting yard), with links to track lay-out maps. See also Train station#Terminus.

Of these, only Den Haag Centraal has nearby junctions, with railways in different directions; in fact in three directions: to Den Haag HS, Voorburg and Laan v NOI. Train route 1400 (the night train) has Den Haag Centraal on the way, with reversal of direction.

[edit] New stations

New stations from December 2004:

New stations from December 2005:

New station from May 2005:

  • Amersfoort Vathorst

[edit] Platforms and tracks

Not the platforms, but the tracks are numbered. Tracks without platform access, used for through traffic, also have a number. This number is not indicated, but it shows indirectly by the fact that in the numbering of the accessible tracks a number is skipped. Track numbers are usually increasing in the direction away from the center of the city and hence away from the main entrance(s) of the station.

A track along a long platform may have an "a" and a "b"-side, and sometimes three sections "a", "b" and "c".

At many stations, above platforms and/or at their access points, there are dynamic displays of the destination and departure time of the next train, see nl:Centraal bediende treinaanwijzer (in Dutch)http://nl.wikipedia.org../../../c/e/n/Centraal_bediende_treinaanwijzer.html.

[edit] Train tickets

Train tickets are least expensive from the ticket machines; at the counter (if available) a supplement of € 0.50 per ticket (with a maximum of € 1 per occasion) has to be paid (from June 2004); in the train a much higher supplement is applicable. Furthermore from October 2005 it is further discouraged to buy tickets on board. Passengers not carrying a valid ticket are fined €35 plus the fare, unless the ticket machines were all out of order or some other exemption applies. This must be paid on the spot unless the passenger can produce identification, in which case they receive a collection notice in the post.

[edit] NS division; station facilities

NS Stations is the division of Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) in charge of the operation of all 390 railway stations, i.e., also those served by other railway companies than NS Reizigers. A daughter company of NS Stations is Servex, which uses the brands Automaten, Brasserie, Burger King, Café T, Café T espresso, C'est du pain, Kiosk, mr. Pizza, Pizza Hut, Restauratie, Smullers, Het Station, Swirl's, and Wizzl, and owns Stationsfoodstore, which is an Albert Heijn franchise exploiting ca. 20 Albert Heijn To Go convenience stores on stations.

Wizzl also sells train tickets. They are typically at small stations which have no separate ticket window or counter; an exception is Rotterdam, with a Wizzl at the back side of the station, while separate ticket windows are at the front side only.

So effectively the Dutch railway company has a monopoly over virtually all railway station outlets. The net effect is little choice, bad service and high prices - exactly as economic theory predicts. For unknown reasons, the Dutch competition authority NMa so far never acted against the Dutch railways - which is in general considered as a very bad example of privatisation.

[edit] Passenger comfort

Passenger comfort sometimes suffers from beggars, thieves, etc., but also from measures against them and against homeless people, e.g. locking waiting rooms in the evening, and sometimes removal of benches from station halls.

[edit] Station abbreviations

The official abbreviations of names of stations are used internally by the NS, but also on handwritten tickets; they can also conveniently be used when entering a station in the NS planners etc. and are needed in some URLs, see below. In a station it can be found in the lower right corner of the yellow departure schedules. In most URLs (see below) they have to be written in lowercase, in some a capital is optional. On the departure schedules they are written in lowercase. In other cases the abbreviations are written with a capital letter.

Stations also have a four-digit code that is used on the keypad of older ticket machines to specify a destination.

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[edit] External links

[edit] Photos

[edit] Maps

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