Railway stations in the Netherlands

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Image:Railwaysnetherlands.png There are 390 train stations in the Netherlands. Dalen station was planned to be closed in December 2004, but due to a mistake in the notification procedure it is still open.

Contents

Categories

Image:Rotterdam Hofplein perron.jpg 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 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.

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.

List of stations, with their official abbreviations

(excluding stations used only during special events)

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

W

Z

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.

New stations

New stations from December 2004:

New stations from December 2005:

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".

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 administration charges.

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.

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.

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.


See also

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External links

Photos

Maps

nl:Lijst van Nederlandse spoorwegstations