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Investment in the system is good, with the doubling of Boxtel-Eindhoven from 2 to 4 tracks is now finished, while quadrupling work on Duivendrecht-almost complete. A new High speed line – the HSL Zuid– has been built from Amsterdam to the Belgian border for high-speed trains Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp-Brussels-Paris. Specialist freight routes are being built with a new line from Rotterdam to the German border called the "Betuweroute" along the A15 highway to Emmerich in Germany.
Like all European countries, Holland receives its share of foreign rail traffic. Belgium railways (SNCB/NMBS) work as far as Amsterdam, Roosendaal and Maastricht. The Thalys high speed trainsets. In the East of the country Holland has multiple crossing points into Germany at Emmerich, Enschede, Heerlen, and Venlo.
Travel Information
Exploring Holland by train is a great experience, and not an expensive one, with one day, five day and month travel passes available. Services for the disabled are good, and guide dogs are allowed on all train services.
NS has an excellent passenger and travel information web site at ns.nl. The site is in both Dutch and English and comes complete with journey planners in both languages. There is also a very good instructional page on how to buy your travel tickets at the automatic ticket machines at webdemo.ns.nl/e2000.
NS International, that part of NS handling travel by rail outside of the Netherlands can be found here
Rail map of the Dutch Network
Additional Dutch tourist information can be found at Holland.com and the Dutch tourist board, the VVV
Private Operators
In the last few years private operators have appeared on the Dutch railway network. Private operators such as Arriva, ACTS, Rail4Chem and ERS operate open-access freight trains on the entire network. It remains to be seen if these companies will be of benefit to the country or turn our fine rail network into the complete mess that they have wrought in the United Kingdom. NS itself was also divided into several independent companies. Freight operation is now in the hands of Railion Benelux, domestic passenger trains are operated by NS-Reizigers and international trains by NS-Internationaal. The rolling stock was divided accordingly. The railway network is now in the hands of ProRail, which is responsible for maintenance of the tracks, operation of the signalling system and dividing capacity between operators.
The private rail operating companies have so far focused on the considerable frieght traffic market between Holland and it's international frieght markets, particualrly to and from the Europort in Rotterdam, one of the world's largest ports. These comapnies started off leasing numbers of older locomotives that had become surplus within Europe, and this has produced an interesting mix of motive power.
With ever increasing emissions requirements on locomotive in Europe several companies are now build highly advanced diesel locomotoves for the private operator and lease markets. Low cost of ownership over the loco life is also a key factor with many of these new locos being able to run for up to three times ther periods between heavy overhauls. Their modular design and build makes major overhauls a matter of swapping out pallets of equipment from the loco and slotting new ones in, reducing overhauls to just two or three days in the workshop.
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