I live in the Detroit area but, surprisingly, have actually heard of Culemborg. The UA-cam channel BicycleDutch has a nice video s featuring school children bicycling to their schools in Culemborg as an example of how safe Dutch bicycle infrastructure is. Interestingly, the route that is shown (Parallelweg West?) runs along a NS rail line and shows a few tains passing by, aalthough I think they're going between Utrecht and s'Hertogenbosch.
Thank you so much for this video. I'm a Dutch Hoofdconducteur (Trainmanager) with the NS and I appreciate it so much you putting things in perspective. A lot of dutch don't realise that they have one of the best performing trains systems in the world with 92% punctuality and a frequency of service you see nowhere else. And that with one of the most dense and complex infrastructures. If you make a video about our train system in the future would you include the following two items: - Tourists have huge problems understanding our system with platforms with an A and B side. It happens a lot they get in the wrong train. In Amsterdam for example the train to schiphol sometimes leave on 13A while the Intercity to Almere leaves on 13B and they find themselves going the wrong way. - Asking a question to a trainmanager while he has started his "vertrekprocedure" (procedure to leave) is a sure fire way to expierence dutch directness for yourself. You will be told, in no uncertain terms, before you even finished your sentence that we can not help you. Or at best you will be ignored. "Vertrekprocedure" is a safety procedure where if things go wrong people can get hurt. We are even taught to ignore or be very direct to people when we started our procedure. Thank you for your entertaining and gezellige videos.
Coming from Germany, when I moved to the Netherlands I LOVED the flexibility - you can just show up, tap in with your ov chipkaart and do a day trip to Fryslan or Limburg. Amazing way to discover the new country ! I would never dare to complain. When a train gets cancelled, I just take the next one.
The OV-chip system is really convenient :) Especially when they manage to change the system so that debit cards work as well (which is in the works). But what I miss from Germany (my inlaws live there) are the group Landestickets (Schönes Wochenende etc.). Those are such good value if you're taking a group! We finally have something that's meant to be similar but it is nowhere near as cheap.
@@Snowshowslow hey! There are group tickets for the whole Netherlands as well for 6,30€ per person - you decide the traject but the price stays the same Also you have samenreiskorting which gives you and up to four people 40% off off peak
@@DominoLarry I know but they're only one way. So it's realistically at least 12,60 each, which is not so great anymore. But yes, samenreiskorting is nice ^
I feel obligated to point out that Culemborg is not a suburb of Utrecht. It's 20 km away and not even in the same province, never mind the same municipality (which, in the case of Utrecht, also includes the massive suburb of De Meern/Leidsche Rijn).
Another great thing is that students can use the OV for free on either weekdays or weekends, with the other being 40% off. It's so nice, because otherwise these trips would cost me like 60 euros in a week. It makes it easier for people to study farther away without having to leave the house and live on their own. Or when people do live on their own they can go back to their hometown in the weekends.
Back in the good old days, when investing in education hadn't fallen victim to neoliberalism yet, the government gave us students a 'studiebeurs'. You simply got some money for going to university, so that everyone, rich or poor, had the chance to do so and without getting into ridiculous debt. Then, somewhere in the early 90s, they decided to give us that 'OV kaart', whether we wanted it or not. Whilst taking 10-15% off our studiebeurs. Was I ever angry about that! My parents lived 15 km from where I went to university, so travelling there didn't cost me nearly that much. So, nice as it looks at first sight, the OV kaart isn't sort of a nice gift at all, it was and is a way to save money on the education system.
@@piquertube That's like saying Almere is not a suburb of Amsterdam because it is, regrettably so, its own municipality. By the way, can we all just agree on the fact that Almere is one of our national shames? We should apologize for that.
@@piquertube And the train Utrecht Culemborg also stops in Houten, Geldermalsen, Zaltbommel, and 's-Hertogenbosch etc. So it's not a pendulum train, only between two places. You can enter/leave Culemborg from/in two directions, both to cities that are hubs in the (international) train system.
My sentiments are similar to yours, Eva. I have clear images of when I was 6 years old and moved from The US to The Netherlands, my Dutch immigrant parents were moving back to Holland. We were traveling somewhere and family members whom we stayed with in Ede, Gelderland dropped us off at the station in Nijmegen. The station looked really big to me, it looked like a giant metal plain hanger with several tracks and platforms in it, and the bridges. At night it looked industrious, grimy and loud with the big yellow trains. Up to that point I had never seen (in The US) a train before, just pictures. This was in 1970. Growing up in Maassluis, a suburb of Rotterdam, I took the train into Rotterdam Centraal a Million times, for school, for work and our idea of having fun in Maassluis was to go to Rotterdam, to catch a movie, to shop, for concerts or just to socialize. As small as Maassluis is, it has 3 train stations, I lived 5 minutes away from Maassluis West (by fiets) and with a 20 minute train ride (7 stops) it dropped me right in the center of Rotterdam where I wanted to be. Trains to Rotterdam rode every 12 minutes. Back in those days there were no private companies, just NS. I am very surprised to hear that they have employee shortages. When I lived in The Netherlands everyone wanted government jobs because they paid much better than private jobs (politically this was a mess!). A few years ago, here in The US, when I lived in Chicago, I tried to get used to and partake in the Chicago public transportation system but it doesn't work for me, everything is just too inept and too cumbersome compared to The Netherlands. One day I was riding from Chicago to Vernon Hill, my suburb. It was busy and a 60-ish man got on the train with his small folding bicycle. When the conductor came to clip the tickets, he and bicycle man greeted and chatted with each other as if they knew each other for years. The man was a University professor and he told the conductor that this was his last trip with the bicycle, he was retiring. For 26 years he had rode that train to work using the bicycle to commute from home to the station and from the station to The University, visa versa. Two things bumblefounded me; (1) why, in 26 year did he never upgrade to a bit more comfortable bike and (2) why, in 26 years did he never get a second bike, one for Chicago and one for his home suburb. It was very cumbersome getting on and off the busy train with his bike and it inconvenienced every one. In 2023 I am returning to The Netherlands for the first time since 1984 on a vacation with my children, I am going to show the country to them. I can't wait, I am so excited.
Maassluis is anything but a suburb (buitenwijk) of Rotterdam. It is and always has been a municipality in its own right and is about 20 km away from Rotterdam. The train service between Maassluis by NS ended in 2016 and as off 2018 Rotterdam Metro (RET) provides a light rail service using the old railway tracks up to Schiedam Centrum station after which it links onto the metro tracks...
@@Mandobanjoman Thanks for responding Danny, I didn't mean to, in any way, diminish what Maassluis is, I grew up there and loved it and my youth. I used the term "suburb" only to make it more relatable to international viewers, many Maassluis residents do work in Rotterdam and it's on a direct path along de niewe waterweg. Incidentally one of my best friends in life, from Maassluis is named Danny. At the time of my leaving back to the US (1984) the population was about 35,000 and expanding quickly to the west. I wonder what the size is now? I'll be visiting this coming summer. As I stated I have no experience with Dutch trains operated by multiple companies, only the NS, are you saying that you can no longer take one train ride straight from Hoek van Holland to Rotterdam Centraal?
@@WindmillChef Maassluis and all the other stations between Schiedam and Hoek van Holland Strand are served by the RET, the Rotterdam public transit company, by metroline B. You can still travel to the centre of Rotterdam, but you'd have to alight at metrostation Beurs, which is underneath the Coolsingel. If you'd want to travel to Rotterdam Centraal, Beurs is the station to change to either metroline D (to Rotterdam Centraal) or E (to Den Haag Centraal). Here ( ua-cam.com/video/2NUKkWbyvoo/v-deo.html ) you'll find a video of a cab ride with metroline B from the suburb of Rotterdam Nesselande to Hoek van Holland Haven, momentarily the terminus. The final stretch to Hoek van Holland Strand will be opened in the near future. At 27:27 the metro enters station Beurs. Incidentally, Hoek van Holland IS part of the Rotterdam municipality, which is a bit odd, since it's about 30 kms West of Rotterdam, and separated from Rotterdam bij Maassluis, Vlaardingen and Schiedam, all municpalities in their own right.
That sounds like it will be one hell of a trip :) Don't be surprised if a few more things changed, some for the better (infrastructure for walking and cycling, e.g.), some for the worse (trust between the government and he population has really eroded since Rutte). But I hope you will still find a lot you recognize and get to share with your loved ones :)
Culemborg is not considered a suburb of Utrecht. It's a small town with medieval origins and city center in a different Province (Gelderland). Still, a balanced and well-presented view of the Dutch railroad system and its present problems.
The Dutch have fallen victim to 'not knowing what they have because they are used to it' so hard. Every country has that to some degree. Scandinavians thinking their country is objectively shit and refusing to believe the stats that say they are pretty much the best place to live. The Dutch follow this tradition HARD. Most are completely oblivious to the fact that the netherlands has some of if not the best infrastructure on earth for example. 20+ years of right wing populist saying everything sucks because of x has made most people at the very least more pessimistic about the quality of life in the Netherlands. There are tons of problems and some things have definitely gotten worse over the past 10 years or so. But it remains one of the best places to have been born in on the planet.
Fun fact: NS learned a lot about streamlining their system from Japan Rail. From what I’ve heard you and others in Netherlands say, it seems the same as my rail travels in Japan. Even the OV Chipkaart is analogous to Suica/PASMO IC cards. One day I’d like to see them up close. cheers!
Great video :) But you may point out that there are 2 different trains. Intercity and Sprinter. The Intercity only drives between the major cities/stations and the Sprinters stop at every station in between too. And then there's the Thalys and IC-Direct on the high speed line (HSL), which I believe also requires reservations.
Thank you for your video, Eva! We love travelling by trains everywhere and the trains in the Netherlands are great but sometimes they are late.... Hugs from Almere!
hello Ava. It is interesting to see how people from abroad look at the Netherlands. Regarding trains: they mainly focus on Randstad Holland and the main cities. The area where I live -Zeeuws Vlaanderen- has no train connection, not even a light rail. A few times a day there is a bus, that's all
Zeeland in general is really poorly served. It's not just the Randstad that is better though. Gelderland and Overijssel for example are fine and so is Brabant, imo. And if you're lucky enough to be on a train route in Groningen (not just the city) it's pretty decent as well. But I guess the many waterways were too complicated / expensive to tunnel? Which is a shame, as I look into holidays in Zeeland often, but never end up going there as it's too inconvenient to travel to and around (we don't own a car). I think it's really holding the province back.
@@Snowshowslow Walcheren has got a train connection Breda Goes Vlissingen. But Zewish Flanders does not. Only, relative, recently it got a road connection under the Western Scheldt. Before the only road connection was through Antwerp. And of course the ferries.
You make a couple of good points, but I just looked up the shortest distance overland between DC and NYC, and it's roughly 270 km. The distance overland between Den Helder and Nijmegen is almost half that at 140km, so on that point, not really a fair comparison. I'm guessing the reason for the similar travel time is more stops in the Netherlands. I used to complain a lot about trains in the Netherlands, but I've been traveling by train in France and Belgium on holiday for the past couple of years, and I can honestly say we're quite spoilt here in the Netherlands, especially in the Randstad. France has its pluses. The high speed rail connection between the big cities is brilliant, once you've made it to Paris on the single bottleneck Thalys train from Rotterdam. I just returned from Perpignan which is a 5 hour journey from Paris, but it's about 800 km away from Paris by rail. Bordeaux which I think is roughly 500km from paris is a 2 hour train ride. In the Netherlands you can take the train from let's say Maastricht to Leeuwarden and spend 3,5 hours on the train including transfers, but the distance is just 250 km, max. On the normal non-high speed trains in France, it's a different story though. Sure, they're pretty much a show up and get on the train deal, but just a few weeks ago I took the train from Perpignan to Carcassonne, with a transfer in Narbonne and when I returned to the station the train I had booked was delayed by 3,5 hours. And when I was at the station at various points in my holiday I've seen many similar delays. I think it's because France is a big country and a lot of the services run for like 10 hours between Nice and Bordeaux, or between Lille and Toulouse, massive distances, so there's a lot of time for delays to develop along the journey, so if you want to hop on halfway, chances are you're going to have to wait a looong time regularly. We get a lot of delays here in the Netherlands too, but most of them are within half an hour or so, and occasionally you get a really long one, but that's mostly in the rare winters we still get like three flakes of snow here and the whole train network just shuts down completely. Germany's probably just a bit better in general with these services. Trains run on time more often, and there's a greater choice between shuttle type services over smaller distances stopping at every village, vs a good high speed network to cover long distances between the major hubs. Within the randstad, everything's great, it's just that we're so not used to long distances that we really just don't cater to travellers on the longer journeys in the way larger countries do. Which means going from Rotterdam to Paris ends up as a shorter journey than from The Hague to Groningen.
Keep in mind that Utrecht and Amsterdam are NOT typical for train service (or indeed anything) in the Netherlands. The further away you get from those cities, the worse things get. When I lived in Enschede for example, train service to Apeldoorn where my parents lived was twice an hour during peak hours, other hours once an hour and none at all between 9pm and 4am. Trains in the randstad also are the best trains in the country, many trains you find elsewhere are run down derelicts that get the bare minimum cleaning and maintenance. Same with bus services.
The reason you can transfer that easily between local and national national trains is that there's a difference between the train companies and a company called ProRail. The NS and Arriva own and operate trains -- but all the tracks and stations are owned and managed by ProRail. And they aren't going to build separate tracks for separate companies. Okay, it's also historical -- originally all the trains, tracks and stations were government owned and operated.
That is not entirely correct: the stations are owned and managed by NS. For the tracks it is a bit more complicated: both the network and the management company ProRail are owned by Railinfratrust BV, which, in turn, is owned by the Dutch state.
Thank you for your nice video FYI: The NS will reimburse your ticket if there is an delay. In case of a delay of half an hour you will receive 50% of a train ticket (based on a one-way journey), and in case of a delay of more than one hour you will be reimbursed the full amount of a single journey. Arriva also reimburse your ticket. For delays and train cancellations, compensation will be awarded if the delay is more than 30 minutes. The amount of the compensation must be at least 2.30 euros.
Traveling costs have a maximum at NS. They're capped at €27.40, if I remeber correctly. So for me living in Groningen (best city in the north) going anywhere beyond Amersfoort (about 2/5 down the country) won't cost me more. Making a trip from Groningen to Utrecht the same price as to Maastricht. Or that trip from Den Helder to Nijmegen.
Normally, even during the weekends there are four trains per hour between Utrecht and Culemburg. Two trains per hour go to Tiel and the other two trains go to 's-Hertogenbosch.
Hi, regarding the costs: to me the costs are very decent and value for money. But this could definitely be different for everyone and their commute. I used to live in Groningen, sometimes I would go to Zwolle. One hour travel costs about 20 euros, while going from Groningen to Utrecht costs 27 euros for 2 hours. 27 euros is also the maximum amount for a single trip by the way. Groningen - Maastricht will also cost 27 euros and is a 4 hour travel. So when I would go to Zwolle I would be complaining about the high costs but when I would go to Maastricht I would consider it great value for money. There are also some affordable subscriptions: Weekend Vrij allows you to travel all the weekend (starting Friday night) for about 34 euros a month. It's very easy to make this subscription worthwhile! And due to NS Flex you can change this subscription after a month if you know you will be traveling less during a certain month. So in general I'm personally very satisfied regarding the costs. But if you would have to commute during peak hours on a one hour trip on business days the costs can stack up quite quickly.
Try comparing Zwolle-Maastricht and Zwolle-Antwerpen. This is more or less the same distance, but the latter one is far more expensive when you are using intercity trains.
In Canada, between Windsor and Toronto it's 5 trains a day. And I'm pretty sure at Tilburg, there were at least 2 Kiosks on the platforms. And it's a fairly small station.
Nice video! You're right, our train system is really great. The US prices shocked me! 130 dollars for a 3 hour train ride? But one thing that I do think makes this all seem more pretty than it is, is that your view is mostly from the Randstad. Like someone else already pointed out: not everywhere has good connection or even connection at all, for example many parts of Zeeland. Everywhere outside of the Randstad trains often run 2x per hour max. So even if we don't plan weeks in advance, you still have to check when to go to the station, what bus to take to not miss your train, or be forced to wait 30 min. The thing that annoys me the most however, must be the fact that outside of the Randstad we always get the older trains. Up until maybe 2-3 years ago in the east you still had very old trains from the '80s, with ashtrays and all. While the Randstad was already riding around in new trains with USB ports for your phone, and seperate rubbish bins for different types of rubbish, we were in trains without a toilet and without AC. And not just on non-busy lines either. Enschede-Zwolle had to deal with these trains until Keolis (a French company) took the line.
The trash cans next to the seat are LOUD! Or uh.. maybe it is just that the train is so QUIET! I guess there is text etched on the top of the window, i didn’t even notice, but i love the silence, nobody is talking and even the train itself is so quiet even travelling at 128km/hour.
Overall Dutch trains/trams /Metro are very good. I lived/worked in The Netherlands for 3 years, and never needed a car. I took the tram to the Amsterdam Zuid station in order to get to Schipol. Commuted to Utrecht by NS. Also took Thalys to Paris or Brussels or Antwerp. I biked everywhere, safely and comfortably. I miss Holland. Had such a good work/life balance there.
Hi, nice video again! I agree the trains in The Netherlands are a (usually) very pleasurable way to travel through the country, although you do have to be lucky for a bit. The route I probably travel the most on, is between Rotterdam (where I live myself) en Leeuwarden (where may parents live) and it usually goes without a fuss. Yet, I've had periods in which I had to travel a bit more often and it indeed can be quite a brick from your wallet -even with a 40% reduction card. And although it might be better than in the U.S., the NS can sometimes make strange or very easy decisions. Like recently, when employees of the company had strikes in different regions throughout the country and they just canceled all of their traffic, even though the strike went on in just one region that day. And of course: the trainsystem here is really dense and a lot of the schedule of the different trains are very much connected, but to have that little creativity so you even cannot let a train ride from (for instance) Groningen to Amersfoort, when the strike is only going on beyond Gouda, to me was quite unprofessional. I would say the company has had more difficult fires to keep under control. So that was a bit of left over frustrations. ;) Funny how you give an example of how planning a trip on short notice, you bring forward a term of about two weeks (as being short), where most or at least a lot of us Dutch people would plan their train trip just for tomorrow, possibly in the next few days, or perhaps even on the fly. And that's just the day; we'll probably just have a vague idea or preferation on which train (as in time, moment on the day) we wan't to catch, but we'll see it when we get on the station. Yet again: overall I like traveling by train, as it is relatively relaxing and acceptably fast, although a really fast line between the North and the Randstad would certainly be of great value.
Utrecht CS to Amsterdam CS has 6 InterCitiy trains an hour, that’s correct. But there are also 2 Sprinter trains an hour. And those are the direct connections without transfer. There are also 2 InterCity trains an hour with a 4min transfer at Amsterdam Zuid to the Metro and 2 Sprinters an hour with a 11 min transfer at Breukelen to another Sprinter. And there are 2 InterCity trains an hour with a 7min transfer at Amsterdam Bijlmer Arena to a Sprinter. At Station Amsterdam Bijlmer Arena you could also take 2 Metro lines to Amsterdam Central Station. The options are numerous.
As someone who came many times in the last 5 years and then moved here a year ago, I have seen a decline in the train system. So many trains canceled, sweltering trains in the summer even when it was not that hot outside. Crowded trains because not enough cars were added. I had such bad experiences getting a seat, even off peak, that I purchased first class. That’s how they get you, huh? Someone informed me that the train has degraded because it was switched from public to a private corporation. Comparing it to Sweden, it’s definitely not as good. And obviously this corporation is not treating the workers right so trains have been canceled for days at a time due to strikes. I missed a lot of events I already paid for.
Personally I am not a big believer in privatization, but at the same time I feel that that in itself does not explain much. First of all, calling the NS privately owned while technically true is a bit of misnommer considering the government owns all stocks and the contracts contain all kinds of regulations on efficiency, frequency and reliability. Also, the NS has been a "private" company for decades (since the early '90-ies according to wiki). Any changes in the performances in the last few years has nothing to do with it. The NS does little without approval from their stock owners: the Dutch government.
it became bad after privatization. before 1997 NS was much better. It also got worse since Pro Rail maintains the tracks. They need to change it to how it was in 1997 and everything will be fine again.
As someone not living in the Randstad the schedules for busses and trains are infrequent enough to want to plan my trips a day or a few hours in advance. Okay, its not like you have to wait for a hour but if you have to wait, 15+ minutes already feels too much, especially if you see the train you wanted to catch leaving the station. At least it's an excuse to visit the kiosk for some snacks, magazine, etc.
If you get motion sickness on the bus be sure to sit just a little bit behind the front wheels, probably just in front of the center of the bus. And probably avoid long trips on a city bus, city bus drivers drive aggressively which doesn't help =p
It sounds like AmTrack is using the same ticketing system as the airlines: the closer you book to your traveldate the more expensive the ticket. It’s like they think: ‘when you book on such short notice you probably HAVE to go there, so you’ll pay any price.” They don’t seem to get that they mis out on a lot of customers by pricing their tickets in that way…
Leaves on track: Mainly a problem in fall obviously. This is an actual issue for trains. The will experience slipping. This casues 2 issues. 1: The braking distance is increased (which forces a slower pace = delays) 2: their wheels get flat spots lowering general ride comfort and increasing maintenance need. In general, the rains in the Netherlands drive about 95% "on time" with on time meaning less than a minute delay.
chilling in my hotel room in Amsterdam just got back, I think trains are top tier transport for people who live there or bikes very few cars in the city but if you are outside the city (rural area) there is cars.
spend most of my youth years in utrecht and the hague, so those trains were essential for me. railroad here is more like an american subway i guess, easy accesable and frequent . but cleaner and more made to chillax. a plus are those silence cabins for people that like a moment of serenity instead of the usual cacophony in a overcrowded society. ;) but yeah it is pretty expensive for the miles you make.
Way back before that we also had actual rail catering. With actual carts. This was back when the koploper still lived up to its name by having a walk through head.
@@frankgeurts3912 Ah okay, I've seen it from the outside in the DB to Berlin, but that's mostly an international train. I've never seen it in an NS train. Learnt something new :)
With autism and obesity trans are for me the way to travel. Before I got a car that is. Still when I need to travel international I will rather take the train then a plane. For me living in Gouda, I was always amazed at how many connections I had to, basically everywhere in my country. And then I could also take my bicycle with me. Like before I had a car, I was so happy I could just go anywhere as a news and events photographer, without worrying. Trains were on time and so comfy and quite affordable.
Finally something positive about the dutch railroads. People forget too often how spoiled we are. I hope the NS can deploy more material soon, so the spoiled people will.also be happy again.
In Swiss trains are better and cheaper, but that's about the only country in western Europe that beats the Netherlands in quality and frequency. Mostly because towns and villages would get isolated if not for trains during Swiss winters.
Many of these comments from Europeans definitely have their fair share of critiques about the Dutch trains...meanwhile I live two hours drive from the nearest passenger train station in nowhere USA. I would just be so happy if I could live in the Northeast and use their rundown trains.
@@AssBlasster If you would draw circles of 8 km (5 miles) (30 minutes cycling) around every train station in the Netherlands, more than 90% of the population would live within those circles. Other areas have fast bus connections to cities with a railway station. So, yes! We are spoiled. Most Dutch people do not like long daily commutes, and move to, or near, the city or town where they work or study. A two hour drive would take you out of the country, wherever you live in the Netherlands.
@@dutchman7623 Pretty impressive coverage of the rail stations in the Netherlands! I can only imagine. I only got two buses a day (at $30 usd one-way) going to the nearest big city with the train station and a large airport, but it's suffice for me if I travel.
@@AssBlasster We, Dutch people, like to complain about everything. Especially the weather. But our country is lush and green, and has the highest agricultural export after the USA. So... even when we are blessed we complain and strive for better.
Trains between Culemborg is simple for Culemborg is only a stop on the way going further on....There are many towns that don't have a train stop so you need a bus going to the town of your destination from the nearest train station....
The "Leaves on the track" thing most of the times is just a complaint out of frustration, and not so much that leaves are actually the issue. People here can get quite frustrated when the public transit has problems somewhere.
Hi Ava. Distance is coming up a lot in this video and I was wondering: did you ever, or do you still feel that everything is too close together, too crammed and full, since there is a lot more free open space in the US?
Your question was not directed to me, but I like to make a remark. As Ava said, some areas in the US are as crowded as western Europe, the north east coast. Took the train from Washington DC to New York Penn. some ten years ago, and it looked as if it was the German Ruhrgebiet in the sixties. Large rusty industrial areas, clearly falling apart and with a lot of degrading factories. New York and surroundings are denser than the Randstad with less trees, parks, greens and a little bit desolate when you look at garbage in the streets, air pollution, patchwork roads, and overall lack of maintenance.
The train systems in the Netherlands are the busyist in the world. In the Netherlands riding every day 7000 trains cross the country and it wil be even more. NS has just buying 60 new double deckers with 4 parts and 60 with 6 passenger parts.
As someone who travels by train outside of the Randstad every day for university, it really is a question whether the regional train I have to take is really going every time, even when the planner apps say it will. After that I take a longer (also regional) train for ~1 hour, which is usually very crowded because it's not recognised as "busy", so they refuse to link another train, even though it's the only train going to the university outside of rush hours. Sometimes there's no seats left when I get on, even though I get on at the first station. They regularly skip 2 of the smaller stations closer to uni because it's already to crowded and nobody would fit. I am happy that I get to travel for free though, because otherwise it would cost me €28 per day.
Seasons change - (1) leaves (in fall) on the tracks, or (2) frozen switches. There's more to that. (1) This is not an urban legend, but almost. The problem has two sides: (a) the wheels of a train have massive "iron" tires (rings) because of the weight (pressure) of the train and the small contact area between wheel and track but also to keep energetic rolling losses as low as possible. This means that the wheels would slip when the tracks are slippery - as can be caused by leaves on the tracks in fall. AFAIK special locomotives or trains ride the tracks once per 24h in the early morning before the start of the timetable in order to brush the tracks. In short, leaves on the tracks can happen but certainly not every year. It seems we want to add 1 million houses in the years to come and probably there will be no leaves to fall by then. (2) As our railway network has fine granularity, it also has many switches. And, as you mention 6 or more trains per hour between Utrecht Central Station (CS) and Amsterdam CS, between Utrecht CS and Amsterdam CS there are switches for exits to other places/tracks. These switches may have to be operated several times per hour. This is never problem except when it is really freezing cold - ffing cold. It's not as if the engineers have designed this waiting for frost to happen, because each switch has its switch heater. When you travel by train and are near a railway station with switches, notice the cabinets next to the track with a text on them "wisselverwarming" (literally "switch heater"). These cabinets will have a tiny chimney. The engineers who designed these made an assumption about the heating capacity that was required by copying, AFAIK, the capacity from the Swiss railway infrastructure. Switzerland has more cold spells that are colder, but is generally drier (so we would need less heating capacity here). And it generally has no more than 2 switch moments per hour (so we would need more heating capacity here). The engineers assumed these pluses and minuses would cancel each other out. Except they don't always in practice. Bottom line, under certain atmospheric/weather conditions the capacity is insufficient. And apparently we (as people, nation) accept this to happen a couple times per decade. It seems like we are waiting for global heating to solve the incidental problem.
We do have all train companies on the same stations. This is because of the rail network not being owned by the train company. The dutch rail system is an independant company in itself
Hi Ava! Nice breakdown of train operations in the Netherlands and the USA. Compared to the New York - Boston trip in the Netherlands Den Helder - Maastricht would give a better comparisson in travel time. Both a bit longer than 4 Hours. The 3 Hours NY - Boston is by Acela, which travels a lot faster than the normal operation. On the other hand there is the frequency of service. Den Helder - Maastricht is twice an hour. I was unable to determine the NY - Boston schedule. Perhaps somebody can tell me about that aspect. Finally, reservations... if the frequency of servece is inadequate for the requirement of service usually a reservation system is applied, thus preventing people from standing during the ride eg. on Eurostar or Thalys, which you also don't want due to the speeds in exces of 300Kmh. Further there is a major difference between the rail infrastructure in US and Netherlands. In the US corridors have been privetly owned (until AMtrack came into existence), While in the Netherlands the privately owned railroad companies (first in 1837) were nationalized in 1937 into NS, which not only owned the trains but also the tracks. Currently Prorail ownes nearly all the tracks in the Netherlands (over 3700km). NS established an integral net of railroadtracks in the country. In the Netherlands there are other train operators as you mentioned. They have a licence to exploit a certain route, but they don't own the tracks. The check-in check-out system in the Netherlands with the OV chipcard was introduced in the 2006-2014 period, so it's a recent development.
Dear Eva...let me compliment you on your Dutch. You pronounce the names correct, and we as Dutch people like it when someone from abroud does that. So thank you. 😘😘
The Dutch say about the railways that "they take your from where you are not, to where you don't need to be, at the time that doesn't suite you". That may seems strange if most of the travelling you do is within the Randstad, but it is very true everywhere else. Also you mentioned that the railways inform you when things change. Well that is precisely what the railways are very bad at. You wouldn't believe the number of times that I have been travelling to the airport with my suitcase and NS kept telling me to go to a different track and eventually you end up, soaked in sweat, sitting in a train that gets cancelled. Love your videos Ava. Keep it up.
I mean, we complain about everything. I travel to and from randstad every now and again, rarely have issues with canceling trains, different rails, times, etc. We'll complain if the train is 1 minute delayed ffs
Have to smile at this one, it's usually car drivers that feel a need to justify their use of a car who say so. Mostly quite ignorant of public transport realities.
@@t.vanoosterhout233 I much prefer taking trains to the airport over cars. But when you're travelling for business and need to align your flight with the departure of the first train of the day (outside the Randstad), things become quite challenging. And if that first train is cancelled or delayed, that sort of ruins the meetings you had scheduled for the day. Also when arriving back at Schiphol during the rush hour, I always take the direct train to where I need to go (fortunately those exist before 20:00) even if it is not the first one, because if you don't, you need to change trains and you and your suitcase find yourself stranded half way up the stairs of the train and that is quite unpleasant for 90 minute or so. And whoever decided that using trains with no room to store suitcases on the route to Schiphol, must be a genius. I suspect your reaction was to my "train from where you are not" comment. But just imagine taking public transport if you're not in the center of a large city and you'll realize that statement is actually very accurate.
Every station in the Netherlands,have a minimum of 2 trains per hour and Max 8 trains per hour(its in the convent between the government and ns)we have the most used rail network in the world
Haha, national complain towards NS: We joke about leaves on the track in autumn. We complain if the train is 5min late. If u have no OV Chip card, you can buy 1 ticket at the station, even if you need to travel with 2 train companies, no probs. Prices are fixed whenever or when you book. Thalys to Paris is only in NL you have to book a reserved seat.
I took 'pleasure' in telling American students that there is a direct train to Paris in approx. 3 hours from Amsterdam which takes you right into the city center and is fully bookable on line and on the same day and you can go straight to the station. So what are you doing here ? The look I got was quite amusing . And have I mentioned the Channel Tunnel train takes you straight to London ,England ? They walked away shaking their heads...
Sorry to bust youre illusion the FLIXbuss is a succesor from i believe Eurostar busses (or something like that can't remember the name) and they where around for decades at least, i took them when i was a teenager and my early twentys when i didn't have any money (i'm over 50 now).
Funny, when the NOS weerbericht predicts snow, everybody switches to travel by train instead of car, bus, bicycle. No wonder the NS gets into trouble, with this passenger explosion, and when the snowflakes really drop, it's even harder to cope. We should 'work from home' in case of storm or snow. Better for you, your employer, and the NS.
Dutch rail is not perfect, but it is still one o the better nation systems. I am just old enough to remember tickets were pre-printed with your destination station. They used to have a giant rack of tickets behind the agent. They then converted to "printed on the spot" either by a ticket agent or kiosk. In NL (and Europe as a whole) public transportation is so good that it's completely normal for young adults to ride solo. I remember being 13 and my sister 15 going back "home" and going on NS day trips for youth. We'd take a bus form Monnickendam to Amsterdam Central. Buy the combined youth day trip (Eindhoven for Evoluon, Efteling, and others). The ticket has the train fair, bus fair, and entrance fees all in one. No one thought it was strange for your teens to go across a country to sight see. In North America child protective services would be called. In the 70's and 80's Dutch rail was amazing... then it was decided that privatizing would be great and magically operating costs would somehow go down. Not so much. From what I heard from my relatives back home, it took a good decade before they got back to anywhere near as good as they used to be. I am a bit of a train nut (nerd) and it's also amazing to see how they keep upgrading the rolling stock. I've ridden on Long Island Rail Road, Metro North, Baltimore to DC (don't recall it's name). All of them had ancient rolling stock. It rocked a lot, wasn't quiet, and they seems to squeeze in more people per row than the NS. Thanks for sharing your comments and perceptions of the NS
Love your videos, Ava. Your description of Amtrak in the Northeast is quite different from most other parts of the States. I live in Chicago and my daughter goe to college in a smaller city about 220 kilometers southwest. Fortunately there is an Amtrak line there, however, there are only 4 trains a day and the trip takes about 2 hours and 10 minutes. For those who don't know, Chicago is as good as it gets for trains west of the Northeast corridor. In our case, the destination city is Bloomington, IL, a "college town". The trip time is on paper only. The trains are never on time. And by never, I don't mean it as someone might complain, "This train is never on time". The train has never been on time for any of her trips. In the Midwest (where Chicago is), Amtrak shares all of its tracks with freight. The freight trains take priority, so Amtrak waits; and the weight of the freights makes the tracks less consistent, so the ride is rough and slower than the trains are actually capable of. This isn't meant to bash Amtrak; I think it is great and does a great job operating in a difficult environment where the American public can not imagine going anywhere without a car; Amtrak isn't funded properly.
The reason we complain a lot about trains is 1. we complain about everything, national hobby number 1 but 2. it used to be way better. Dutch railways used to be a lot more reliable. Having decent enough experience with public transport in 3 countries I can say Czechia > Netherlands > UK by a large margin, not even close.
love the way you pronounce my province, Friesland. Was nice to hear an American say, Frisia.. Try to pronounce that name Friesland in the Frisian language :) cya in Frisian oant sjen!
The Dutch are often complaining about the railways and comparing them with other countries to "prove" how bad the dutch railways are and how we get laught at by foreigners about bad we are at it. When i talk about it to foreigners, they often are nothing but praise. They know how bad it can be in "their" countries. And how lucky we are for having our system as it is.
Ava, lucky you! Utrecht is not only in the centre of the Netherlands, but the Netherlands themselves are in the middle of Germany, France and the United Kingdom. But what you didn't mention is my personal pride: the NS-fiets! Nearly every station in the Netherlands has a take as you like NS rent a bike, for about 3 euro's a day! Cost of membership? 0,01 Eurocent 🙂
People just don't understand how the human brain works. You can have 99 train rides perfectly on time but you"ll remember the one that did not. Winter is normally no problem only in very rare severe cold combined with strong wind the lane switch heating system can't cope, that's the day people remember even if it happened 6 years ago. And even you Eva, it doesn't rain a lot 😉 infact we're in a drought for several years now. Just put a little mark on a calender for each day that rain has the upper hand and see how they compare after a year or so, the rainy days are just the one you remember. It's our survival mechanism.
Depends on how small is 'small'. The "stoeptegels naast het spoor"-type stations, sure. But there are also a lot of stations that would probably be considered small by US standards, but that nevertheless have shops, such as Rosmalen. That having been said, the stations without shops _really_ need at least a coffee vending machine!
@@crytocc lots of stations where just the sprinter stops or the regional stoptrein. Are the small stations according to the railroad companies, what's considered small in American standards doesn't matter at all it's about the Netherlands
$130??? I just spent 3 days traveling between Utrecht and Amsterdam (and then back to Groningen) due to Amsterdam Dance Event and have spent that much in TOTAL. I can't begin to imagine paying that much for a 1-way trip
What I particularly don't like of travelling by train is that almost everyone even older people stares at their phone. No one looks out of the window anymore or reads a book. People are so focused on their phone. I like to observe people on how much they take out their phone during a train ride. That's quite a lot actually. I really don't like this 'mobile culture'. 90% of my trips I do not even carry my phone with me. I deliberately leave it at home. But when I do have my phone with me I don't fear this such compulsive behaviour. I don't feel the urge to take out my phone, not even when it makes a notification sound. It's a shame that about everyone still shifts on that fast-moving fast-communicating world even on the train. What happened to 'sit back and relax, enjoy the train ride.' Watch some grazing cows and sheep in the wide dutch meadows.
Lol if you're having the same commute every single day the view can get boring. And what's even wrong with looking at your phone? For all you know these people are relaxing and reading a book or playing a wordgame. They probably are 'sitting back and relaxing, enjoying the train ride' 🤡
Unlike driving where you have to operate the vehicle, the beauty of a train is the freedom to do whatever you want, even judging people in your head while you enjoy the view!
Eva, it is not like that in the entire country. It shows from your review that you live in the Randstad. If I want to travel to Amsterdam from where I live, 135KM distance, I first have to take a bus to a nearby town, mine doesn't have railways, that bus goes twice an hour, no reservations necessary, that is true. Arriving at the train station, I will find out that the bus schedule is not the same as the train's (bus arrival at 15.04, train departure 15.01 "THANK YOU") and have to wait maybe half an hour for the train to Zutphen on a platform without kiosk or coffee stall, at most there is a half wall to hide from the wind. By the time the train comes in, I'm cold and miserable, from there on though it should be a breeze. The station in Zutphen is larger, kiosks and coffee in the hall, not on the platforms. However, there is no train directly from Zutphen to Amsterdam, I will have to switch between different trains 3 times. The closer you get to the Randstad, the smoother it goes. Likewise, the further you get from the Randstad, the more waiting time is added to your schedule. Total travel time is a little over 2 hours, so that is still good. Cost : €23,24 single trip I don't regularly travel by train.
On the whole I get your frustration, but you can always go to Apeldoorn --> Amsterdam or Arnhem --> Amsterdam if you're coming from Zutphen. No need for 3 different switches.
@@MyrthexLatoya Certainly, although I count 1) Bus, 2) Train to Zutphen, 3) Train from Zutphen to destination, any other switch adds more time, although it becomes less the closer we get to the Randstad. For hospital services, my area is depending on the hospital in Winterswijk, however to get there by bus, I have to use 2 different lines that are not synchronized (read: waiting upto half an hour in the middle of nowhere) For that reason, I choose a hospital in Enschede, 1 direct line. It is a tad further away, but I prefer a warm bus to a cold wait for half an hour. It may seem that I'm continuously frustrated, I'm actually not. I'm actually relaxed, it is not that I have to visit larger cities every other week. Once or twice a year, I can suck it up. I rather live here, surrounded by forest and farms, then live in a city with everything within reach. It is a choice.
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These months they aren't. Many are canceled on the spot due to worker shortage.
Distance wise it would have been better to take a train from Leeuwarden to Maastricht. Two larger cities (by Dutch standards) over the longest possible distance. Still less than 300km dough ;-)
the dutch people have a reason to complain since after privatisation of the rails everything got worse. But it is still better then in a lot of different country's
If you compare similar distance to the ones in the USA you talk about, then you should compare international trains. Then you get onto the TGVs or high-speed trains. E.g. Amsterdam - Paris (500 km, 315 American miles) takes 3 hours, including a stop in Brussels South that takes up half an hour. These trains speed up to 300 km/h and more. China and northern Europe are full of them. The US has none.
Let me explain why I prefer to use my car instead of taking a train in The Netherlands.........First of alll, the costs, it is cheaper to drive with my car, because the prices of the train are REALLY REALLY expensive in The Netherlands!! Secondly, it is easy to talk from Utrecht to Amsterdam, but for instance, when you have to go from the north (where I live) to the south or to the west of the country you need a lot more time by train because of the stop-overs, and yes, that includes traffic jams. I don't even start about the prices, because it is my opinion that trains should be affordable to minimum prices while in fact here in The Netherlands they use MAXIMUM prices! And not even to mention the fact of the leafs on the rails, which is actually a bad excuse for having the wrong rails, I know what I am talking about, I traveled by train in Poland and went from south to north, Poland is a lot bigger, with -36 celsius during the winter I had at that time I didn't loose a minute, for a tenth of the price in The Netherlands!! Therefor I still prefer a car!! Thumbs up!!
So, Ava, if I may, you actually say (and your would be very rightful in this) that the train concept in the US is vastly over monetized. (as is very much everything else).😬🧐
I am a regular long distance Amtrak commuter. I have used trains in the Netherlands, UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany. All of them are a million times better than Amtrak. We have hundred year old right of ways that don't permit high speed operation and have to share the rails with freight trains that often have priority. This assures poor speed and on time performance. The trains are thus expensive and slow. None of this should surprise anyone. The US has no commitment to public transportation.
sounds like Amtrax is a lot like NS HighSpeed Thalys, Eurostar and ICE are also a lot cheaper if you reserve 3 months in advance and very expencive last minute.
But is the ticket still more expensive in the US in relation to the average salary? I assume there is a difference in salary between the two countries, not sure who has the highest average income as this may make you feel the ticket costs in your wallet or not.
11:14 I bet is is that expensive because all second and first class seats are taken and you are left with the full meal & free-drinks-all-the-way included pamper class seats. Not?
The Dutch train system is a victim of it’s own success. And Dutch like to compare to German or French system and claim that’s better, but it’s a case of the grass being always greener on the other side. With the exception of the local rail companies in the far north/south of the country, when you buy a ticket, you can get any train you want, (okay mostly, when going from Rotterdam to Schiphol via the High speed line you are required to buy a supplement of 3€), so you are not tied to a certain service or time frame. If you want you can get the regional service (sprinter), thé intercity service or the High Speed service (ICD). On all trains ran by NS, this makes much simpler for tourists and commuters to go back and forth without ever looking at the time table or looking at the time, you are going from A to B and how you get there is your choice. In Germany, where I lives, the train system is much more complicated, there are the metropolitan train (S-bahn) that’s normally tied with the same ticketing as the metro and busses, then you have regional services, intercity services and high speed services, the tickets are different for each service, and often for some of those services you have an specific time, so you can’t just decide to take a train later or earlier. This gives the advantage of being able to reserve seats, but I rather prefer to take a risk in taking a non-rush hour train and hope to have a seat then being tied down to an specific time. Since trains in The Netherlands are also regularly so often and all lines are so interconnected, when troubles occur, sadly it means that the whole country stops, but it’s an small price to pay for having a system that’s modern and reliable for most of the time. I just hope that issues at NS and ProRail will get sorted out soon.
Question. Has the English of the Netherlands (which I believe is mostly British/English English) ever caused you any issues since you clearly speak American? I'm curious for example you kept saying trash can but most people would know it as a rubbish/trash bin right?
I'd be surprised if it caused many issues: there is so much American English in the media that it largely drowns out the British English taught most often in schools! (I'm a Dutch near-native speaker of British English, I teach English at university and I keep discovering Americanisms that I've been using unsuspectingly for decades!)
I live in the Detroit area but, surprisingly, have actually heard of Culemborg. The UA-cam channel BicycleDutch has a nice video s featuring school children bicycling to their schools in Culemborg as an example of how safe Dutch bicycle infrastructure is. Interestingly, the route that is shown (Parallelweg West?) runs along a NS rail line and shows a few tains passing by, aalthough I think they're going between Utrecht and s'Hertogenbosch.
All trains there go Utrecht 's-Hertogenbosch, but every other one stops at all the train stations in between.
Thank you so much for this video. I'm a Dutch Hoofdconducteur (Trainmanager) with the NS and I appreciate it so much you putting things in perspective. A lot of dutch don't realise that they have one of the best performing trains systems in the world with 92% punctuality and a frequency of service you see nowhere else. And that with one of the most dense and complex infrastructures.
If you make a video about our train system in the future would you include the following two items:
- Tourists have huge problems understanding our system with platforms with an A and B side. It happens a lot they get in the wrong train. In Amsterdam for example the train to schiphol sometimes leave on 13A while the Intercity to Almere leaves on 13B and they find themselves going the wrong way.
- Asking a question to a trainmanager while he has started his "vertrekprocedure" (procedure to leave) is a sure fire way to expierence dutch directness for yourself. You will be told, in no uncertain terms, before you even finished your sentence that we can not help you. Or at best you will be ignored.
"Vertrekprocedure" is a safety procedure where if things go wrong people can get hurt. We are even taught to ignore or be very direct to people when we started our procedure.
Thank you for your entertaining and gezellige videos.
Coming from Germany, when I moved to the Netherlands I LOVED the flexibility - you can just show up, tap in with your ov chipkaart and do a day trip to Fryslan or Limburg. Amazing way to discover the new country ! I would never dare to complain. When a train gets cancelled, I just take the next one.
Love the positive attitude!
The OV-chip system is really convenient :) Especially when they manage to change the system so that debit cards work as well (which is in the works). But what I miss from Germany (my inlaws live there) are the group Landestickets (Schönes Wochenende etc.). Those are such good value if you're taking a group! We finally have something that's meant to be similar but it is nowhere near as cheap.
@@Snowshowslow hey! There are group tickets for the whole Netherlands as well for 6,30€ per person - you decide the traject but the price stays the same
Also you have samenreiskorting which gives you and up to four people 40% off off peak
@@DominoLarry I know but they're only one way. So it's realistically at least 12,60 each, which is not so great anymore. But yes, samenreiskorting is nice ^
@@Snowshowslow the more people you are the cheaper it gets per person ;)
I feel obligated to point out that Culemborg is not a suburb of Utrecht. It's 20 km away and not even in the same province, never mind the same municipality (which, in the case of Utrecht, also includes the massive suburb of De Meern/Leidsche Rijn).
Remember that she's from America, where they have cities like New York that is in size comparable to a Dutch province.
@@gert-janvanderlee5307 Heel Nederland past ongeveer 20 keer in een staat als Texas...
@@hansolo2121 Hoef je mij niet te vertellen.
@@gert-janvanderlee5307 Heb ik toch gedaan :)
Another great thing is that students can use the OV for free on either weekdays or weekends, with the other being 40% off. It's so nice, because otherwise these trips would cost me like 60 euros in a week. It makes it easier for people to study farther away without having to leave the house and live on their own. Or when people do live on their own they can go back to their hometown in the weekends.
I have heard about this before-that’s indeed very nice! It’s a significant discount!
Back in the good old days, when investing in education hadn't fallen victim to neoliberalism yet, the government gave us students a 'studiebeurs'. You simply got some money for going to university, so that everyone, rich or poor, had the chance to do so and without getting into ridiculous debt.
Then, somewhere in the early 90s, they decided to give us that 'OV kaart', whether we wanted it or not. Whilst taking 10-15% off our studiebeurs. Was I ever angry about that! My parents lived 15 km from where I went to university, so travelling there didn't cost me nearly that much.
So, nice as it looks at first sight, the OV kaart isn't sort of a nice gift at all, it was and is a way to save money on the education system.
Culemborg is not a suburb of Utrecht it's a separate town. With it's own town hall
@@piquertube That's like saying Almere is not a suburb of Amsterdam because it is, regrettably so, its own municipality. By the way, can we all just agree on the fact that Almere is one of our national shames? We should apologize for that.
@@piquertube And the train Utrecht Culemborg also stops in Houten, Geldermalsen, Zaltbommel, and 's-Hertogenbosch etc. So it's not a pendulum train, only between two places. You can enter/leave Culemborg from/in two directions, both to cities that are hubs in the (international) train system.
My sentiments are similar to yours, Eva.
I have clear images of when I was 6 years old and moved from The US to The Netherlands, my Dutch immigrant parents were moving back to Holland. We were traveling somewhere and family members whom we stayed with in Ede, Gelderland dropped us off at the station in Nijmegen. The station looked really big to me, it looked like a giant metal plain hanger with several tracks and platforms in it, and the bridges. At night it looked industrious, grimy and loud with the big yellow trains. Up to that point I had never seen (in The US) a train before, just pictures. This was in 1970.
Growing up in Maassluis, a suburb of Rotterdam, I took the train into Rotterdam Centraal a Million times, for school, for work and our idea of having fun in Maassluis was to go to Rotterdam, to catch a movie, to shop, for concerts or just to socialize. As small as Maassluis is, it has 3 train stations, I lived 5 minutes away from Maassluis West (by fiets) and with a 20 minute train ride (7 stops) it dropped me right in the center of Rotterdam where I wanted to be. Trains to Rotterdam rode every 12 minutes. Back in those days there were no private companies, just NS. I am very surprised to hear that they have employee shortages. When I lived in The Netherlands everyone wanted government jobs because they paid much better than private jobs (politically this was a mess!).
A few years ago, here in The US, when I lived in Chicago, I tried to get used to and partake in the Chicago public transportation system but it doesn't work for me, everything is just too inept and too cumbersome compared to The Netherlands. One day I was riding from Chicago to Vernon Hill, my suburb. It was busy and a 60-ish man got on the train with his small folding bicycle. When the conductor came to clip the tickets, he and bicycle man greeted and chatted with each other as if they knew each other for years. The man was a University professor and he told the conductor that this was his last trip with the bicycle, he was retiring. For 26 years he had rode that train to work using the bicycle to commute from home to the station and from the station to The University, visa versa. Two things bumblefounded me; (1) why, in 26 year did he never upgrade to a bit more comfortable bike and (2) why, in 26 years did he never get a second bike, one for Chicago and one for his home suburb. It was very cumbersome getting on and off the busy train with his bike and it inconvenienced every one. In 2023 I am returning to The Netherlands for the first time since 1984 on a vacation with my children, I am going to show the country to them. I can't wait, I am so excited.
Maassluis is anything but a suburb (buitenwijk) of Rotterdam. It is and always has been a municipality in its own right and is about 20 km away from Rotterdam. The train service between Maassluis by NS ended in 2016 and as off 2018 Rotterdam Metro (RET) provides a light rail service using the old railway tracks up to Schiedam Centrum station after which it links onto the metro tracks...
@@Mandobanjoman Thanks for responding Danny,
I didn't mean to, in any way, diminish what Maassluis is, I grew up there and loved it and my youth. I used the term "suburb" only to make it more relatable to international viewers, many Maassluis residents do work in Rotterdam and it's on a direct path along de niewe waterweg. Incidentally one of my best friends in life, from Maassluis is named Danny. At the time of my leaving back to the US (1984) the population was about 35,000 and expanding quickly to the west. I wonder what the size is now? I'll be visiting this coming summer.
As I stated I have no experience with Dutch trains operated by multiple companies, only the NS, are you saying that you can no longer take one train ride straight from Hoek van Holland to Rotterdam Centraal?
@@WindmillChef Maassluis and all the other stations between Schiedam and Hoek van Holland Strand are served by the RET, the Rotterdam public transit company, by metroline B. You can still travel to the centre of Rotterdam, but you'd have to alight at metrostation Beurs, which is underneath the Coolsingel. If you'd want to travel to Rotterdam Centraal, Beurs is the station to change to either metroline D (to Rotterdam Centraal) or E (to Den Haag Centraal).
Here ( ua-cam.com/video/2NUKkWbyvoo/v-deo.html ) you'll find a video of a cab ride with metroline B from the suburb of Rotterdam Nesselande to Hoek van Holland Haven, momentarily the terminus. The final stretch to Hoek van Holland Strand will be opened in the near future. At 27:27 the metro enters station Beurs.
Incidentally, Hoek van Holland IS part of the Rotterdam municipality, which is a bit odd, since it's about 30 kms West of Rotterdam, and separated from Rotterdam bij Maassluis, Vlaardingen and Schiedam, all municpalities in their own right.
That sounds like it will be one hell of a trip :) Don't be surprised if a few more things changed, some for the better (infrastructure for walking and cycling, e.g.), some for the worse (trust between the government and he population has really eroded since Rutte). But I hope you will still find a lot you recognize and get to share with your loved ones :)
Culemborg is not considered a suburb of Utrecht. It's a small town with medieval origins and city center in a different Province (Gelderland). Still, a balanced and well-presented view of the Dutch railroad system and its present problems.
The Dutch have fallen victim to 'not knowing what they have because they are used to it' so hard. Every country has that to some degree. Scandinavians thinking their country is objectively shit and refusing to believe the stats that say they are pretty much the best place to live. The Dutch follow this tradition HARD. Most are completely oblivious to the fact that the netherlands has some of if not the best infrastructure on earth for example.
20+ years of right wing populist saying everything sucks because of x has made most people at the very least more pessimistic about the quality of life in the Netherlands. There are tons of problems and some things have definitely gotten worse over the past 10 years or so. But it remains one of the best places to have been born in on the planet.
Yup. I totally agree. The left get the blame of everything but I can't remember in my lifetime that we had a real left government xD
Really nice to see you on the streets of Utrecht today! 🤗
Fun fact: NS learned a lot about streamlining their system from Japan Rail. From what I’ve heard you and others in Netherlands say, it seems the same as my rail travels in Japan. Even the OV Chipkaart is analogous to Suica/PASMO IC cards. One day I’d like to see them up close. cheers!
I travelled by train regularly for decades. Apart for the last two years, due to personnel shortages, the traveling by train is quite good.
Do you mean personnel? Or had the shortages something to do with you personally?
@@dutchuncle2716 oops…error 😱
Great video :) But you may point out that there are 2 different trains. Intercity and Sprinter. The Intercity only drives between the major cities/stations and the Sprinters stop at every station in between too. And then there's the Thalys and IC-Direct on the high speed line (HSL), which I believe also requires reservations.
I wish the OV chipcard was worldwide. It's such a freaking handy thing.
Can't wait for OVPay with my regular bank card, only use OV a few times and buy a ticket each time.
Btw, it's nice hearing from you again.
Thank you for your video, Eva! We love travelling by trains everywhere and the trains in the Netherlands are great but sometimes they are late.... Hugs from Almere!
hello Ava. It is interesting to see how people from abroad look at the Netherlands. Regarding trains: they mainly focus on Randstad Holland and the main cities. The area where I live -Zeeuws Vlaanderen- has no train connection, not even a light rail. A few times a day there is a bus, that's all
Zeeland in general is really poorly served. It's not just the Randstad that is better though. Gelderland and Overijssel for example are fine and so is Brabant, imo. And if you're lucky enough to be on a train route in Groningen (not just the city) it's pretty decent as well. But I guess the many waterways were too complicated / expensive to tunnel? Which is a shame, as I look into holidays in Zeeland often, but never end up going there as it's too inconvenient to travel to and around (we don't own a car). I think it's really holding the province back.
@@Snowshowslow Walcheren has got a train connection Breda Goes Vlissingen.
But Zewish Flanders does not. Only, relative, recently it got a road connection under the Western Scheldt. Before the only road connection was through Antwerp. And of course the ferries.
You make a couple of good points, but I just looked up the shortest distance overland between DC and NYC, and it's roughly 270 km. The distance overland between Den Helder and Nijmegen is almost half that at 140km, so on that point, not really a fair comparison. I'm guessing the reason for the similar travel time is more stops in the Netherlands.
I used to complain a lot about trains in the Netherlands, but I've been traveling by train in France and Belgium on holiday for the past couple of years, and I can honestly say we're quite spoilt here in the Netherlands, especially in the Randstad. France has its pluses. The high speed rail connection between the big cities is brilliant, once you've made it to Paris on the single bottleneck Thalys train from Rotterdam. I just returned from Perpignan which is a 5 hour journey from Paris, but it's about 800 km away from Paris by rail. Bordeaux which I think is roughly 500km from paris is a 2 hour train ride. In the Netherlands you can take the train from let's say Maastricht to Leeuwarden and spend 3,5 hours on the train including transfers, but the distance is just 250 km, max.
On the normal non-high speed trains in France, it's a different story though. Sure, they're pretty much a show up and get on the train deal, but just a few weeks ago I took the train from Perpignan to Carcassonne, with a transfer in Narbonne and when I returned to the station the train I had booked was delayed by 3,5 hours. And when I was at the station at various points in my holiday I've seen many similar delays. I think it's because France is a big country and a lot of the services run for like 10 hours between Nice and Bordeaux, or between Lille and Toulouse, massive distances, so there's a lot of time for delays to develop along the journey, so if you want to hop on halfway, chances are you're going to have to wait a looong time regularly.
We get a lot of delays here in the Netherlands too, but most of them are within half an hour or so, and occasionally you get a really long one, but that's mostly in the rare winters we still get like three flakes of snow here and the whole train network just shuts down completely. Germany's probably just a bit better in general with these services. Trains run on time more often, and there's a greater choice between shuttle type services over smaller distances stopping at every village, vs a good high speed network to cover long distances between the major hubs. Within the randstad, everything's great, it's just that we're so not used to long distances that we really just don't cater to travellers on the longer journeys in the way larger countries do. Which means going from Rotterdam to Paris ends up as a shorter journey than from The Hague to Groningen.
The restaurants in stations were called "restauratie". A word not used much anymore. But you can find it in old stations.
Keep in mind that Utrecht and Amsterdam are NOT typical for train service (or indeed anything) in the Netherlands.
The further away you get from those cities, the worse things get.
When I lived in Enschede for example, train service to Apeldoorn where my parents lived was twice an hour during peak hours, other hours once an hour and none at all between 9pm and 4am.
Trains in the randstad also are the best trains in the country, many trains you find elsewhere are run down derelicts that get the bare minimum cleaning and maintenance.
Same with bus services.
Love your great sense of relativizing - plus you never fail to make me smile.
Awww, thank you ☺️
The reason you can transfer that easily between local and national national trains is that there's a difference between the train companies and a company called ProRail. The NS and Arriva own and operate trains -- but all the tracks and stations are owned and managed by ProRail. And they aren't going to build separate tracks for separate companies.
Okay, it's also historical -- originally all the trains, tracks and stations were government owned and operated.
That is not entirely correct: the stations are owned and managed by NS. For the tracks it is a bit more complicated: both the network and the management company ProRail are owned by Railinfratrust BV, which, in turn, is owned by the Dutch state.
Thank you for your nice video
FYI: The NS will reimburse your ticket if there is an delay.
In case of a delay of half an hour you will receive 50% of a train ticket (based on a one-way journey), and in case of a delay of more than one hour you will be reimbursed the full amount of a single journey.
Arriva also reimburse your ticket.
For delays and train cancellations, compensation will be awarded if the delay is more than 30 minutes. The amount of the compensation must be at least 2.30 euros.
Traveling costs have a maximum at NS. They're capped at €27.40, if I remeber correctly.
So for me living in Groningen (best city in the north) going anywhere beyond Amersfoort (about 2/5 down the country) won't cost me more. Making a trip from Groningen to Utrecht the same price as to Maastricht. Or that trip from Den Helder to Nijmegen.
Normally, even during the weekends there are four trains per hour between Utrecht and Culemburg. Two trains per hour go to Tiel and the other two trains go to 's-Hertogenbosch.
Hi, regarding the costs: to me the costs are very decent and value for money. But this could definitely be different for everyone and their commute. I used to live in Groningen, sometimes I would go to Zwolle. One hour travel costs about 20 euros, while going from Groningen to Utrecht costs 27 euros for 2 hours. 27 euros is also the maximum amount for a single trip by the way. Groningen - Maastricht will also cost 27 euros and is a 4 hour travel. So when I would go to Zwolle I would be complaining about the high costs but when I would go to Maastricht I would consider it great value for money.
There are also some affordable subscriptions: Weekend Vrij allows you to travel all the weekend (starting Friday night) for about 34 euros a month. It's very easy to make this subscription worthwhile! And due to NS Flex you can change this subscription after a month if you know you will be traveling less during a certain month. So in general I'm personally very satisfied regarding the costs. But if you would have to commute during peak hours on a one hour trip on business days the costs can stack up quite quickly.
Try comparing Zwolle-Maastricht and Zwolle-Antwerpen. This is more or less the same distance, but the latter one is far more expensive when you are using intercity trains.
In Canada, between Windsor and Toronto it's 5 trains a day. And I'm pretty sure at Tilburg, there were at least 2 Kiosks on the platforms. And it's a fairly small station.
Nice video! You're right, our train system is really great. The US prices shocked me! 130 dollars for a 3 hour train ride?
But one thing that I do think makes this all seem more pretty than it is, is that your view is mostly from the Randstad. Like someone else already pointed out: not everywhere has good connection or even connection at all, for example many parts of Zeeland. Everywhere outside of the Randstad trains often run 2x per hour max. So even if we don't plan weeks in advance, you still have to check when to go to the station, what bus to take to not miss your train, or be forced to wait 30 min.
The thing that annoys me the most however, must be the fact that outside of the Randstad we always get the older trains. Up until maybe 2-3 years ago in the east you still had very old trains from the '80s, with ashtrays and all. While the Randstad was already riding around in new trains with USB ports for your phone, and seperate rubbish bins for different types of rubbish, we were in trains without a toilet and without AC. And not just on non-busy lines either. Enschede-Zwolle had to deal with these trains until Keolis (a French company) took the line.
I wouldn't call Culemborg a suburb of Utrecht. It's more just a town near Utrecht.
In rural areas there are trainstations with only a platform and a small shelter. No shops, no vending machines, no bycicle rent, no busses.
The trash cans next to the seat are LOUD! Or uh.. maybe it is just that the train is so QUIET! I guess there is text etched on the top of the window, i didn’t even notice, but i love the silence, nobody is talking and even the train itself is so quiet even travelling at 128km/hour.
Overall Dutch trains/trams /Metro are very good.
I lived/worked in The Netherlands for 3 years, and never needed a car.
I took the tram to the Amsterdam Zuid station in order to get to Schipol. Commuted to Utrecht by NS.
Also took Thalys to Paris or Brussels or Antwerp.
I biked everywhere, safely and comfortably.
I miss Holland. Had such a good work/life balance there.
Hi, nice video again! I agree the trains in The Netherlands are a (usually) very pleasurable way to travel through the country, although you do have to be lucky for a bit. The route I probably travel the most on, is between Rotterdam (where I live myself) en Leeuwarden (where may parents live) and it usually goes without a fuss. Yet, I've had periods in which I had to travel a bit more often and it indeed can be quite a brick from your wallet -even with a 40% reduction card. And although it might be better than in the U.S., the NS can sometimes make strange or very easy decisions. Like recently, when employees of the company had strikes in different regions throughout the country and they just canceled all of their traffic, even though the strike went on in just one region that day.
And of course: the trainsystem here is really dense and a lot of the schedule of the different trains are very much connected, but to have that little creativity so you even cannot let a train ride from (for instance) Groningen to Amersfoort, when the strike is only going on beyond Gouda, to me was quite unprofessional. I would say the company has had more difficult fires to keep under control.
So that was a bit of left over frustrations. ;)
Funny how you give an example of how planning a trip on short notice, you bring forward a term of about two weeks (as being short), where most or at least a lot of us Dutch people would plan their train trip just for tomorrow, possibly in the next few days, or perhaps even on the fly. And that's just the day; we'll probably just have a vague idea or preferation on which train (as in time, moment on the day) we wan't to catch, but we'll see it when we get on the station.
Yet again: overall I like traveling by train, as it is relatively relaxing and acceptably fast, although a really fast line between the North and the Randstad would certainly be of great value.
Try to travel from Alkmaar to Amsterdam during rush ours and vice versa. It is hell.
Utrecht CS to Amsterdam CS has 6 InterCitiy trains an hour, that’s correct. But there are also 2 Sprinter trains an hour. And those are the direct connections without transfer. There are also 2 InterCity trains an hour with a 4min transfer at Amsterdam Zuid to the Metro and 2 Sprinters an hour with a 11 min transfer at Breukelen to another Sprinter. And there are 2 InterCity trains an hour with a 7min transfer at Amsterdam Bijlmer Arena to a Sprinter. At Station Amsterdam Bijlmer Arena you could also take 2 Metro lines to Amsterdam Central Station. The options are numerous.
As someone who came many times in the last 5 years and then moved here a year ago, I have seen a decline in the train system. So many trains canceled, sweltering trains in the summer even when it was not that hot outside. Crowded trains because not enough cars were added. I had such bad experiences getting a seat, even off peak, that I purchased first class. That’s how they get you, huh? Someone informed me that the train has degraded because it was switched from public to a private corporation. Comparing it to Sweden, it’s definitely not as good. And obviously this corporation is not treating the workers right so trains have been canceled for days at a time due to strikes. I missed a lot of events I already paid for.
Personally I am not a big believer in privatization, but at the same time I feel that that in itself does not explain much. First of all, calling the NS privately owned while technically true is a bit of misnommer considering the government owns all stocks and the contracts contain all kinds of regulations on efficiency, frequency and reliability. Also, the NS has been a
"private" company for decades (since the early '90-ies according to wiki). Any changes in the performances in the last few years has nothing to do with it. The NS does little without approval from their stock owners: the Dutch government.
it became bad after privatization. before 1997 NS was much better. It also got worse since Pro Rail maintains the tracks. They need to change it to how it was in 1997 and everything will be fine again.
😊 if you in de randstad its ok ,, but try to get to Terneuzen or to Aalten or Den Helder 😅 great vid bdw
As someone not living in the Randstad the schedules for busses and trains are infrequent enough to want to plan my trips a day or a few hours in advance. Okay, its not like you have to wait for a hour but if you have to wait, 15+ minutes already feels too much, especially if you see the train you wanted to catch leaving the station. At least it's an excuse to visit the kiosk for some snacks, magazine, etc.
That's a matter of planning. Arrive on Schiphol and see your plane to New York take off isn't pleasant either.
Awesome video!
If you get motion sickness on the bus be sure to sit just a little bit behind the front wheels, probably just in front of the center of the bus. And probably avoid long trips on a city bus, city bus drivers drive aggressively which doesn't help =p
It sounds like AmTrack is using the same ticketing system as the airlines: the closer you book to your traveldate the more expensive the ticket. It’s like they think: ‘when you book on such short notice you probably HAVE to go there, so you’ll pay any price.” They don’t seem to get that they mis out on a lot of customers by pricing their tickets in that way…
Leaves on track: Mainly a problem in fall obviously. This is an actual issue for trains. The will experience slipping. This casues 2 issues.
1: The braking distance is increased (which forces a slower pace = delays)
2: their wheels get flat spots lowering general ride comfort and increasing maintenance need.
In general, the rains in the Netherlands drive about 95% "on time" with on time meaning less than a minute delay.
chilling in my hotel room in Amsterdam just got back, I think trains are top tier transport for people who live there or bikes very few cars in the city but if you are outside the city (rural area) there is cars.
spend most of my youth years in utrecht and the hague, so those trains were essential for me.
railroad here is more like an american subway i guess, easy accesable and frequent .
but cleaner and more made to chillax.
a plus are those silence cabins for people that like a moment of serenity instead of the usual cacophony in a overcrowded society. ;)
but yeah it is pretty expensive for the miles you make.
Before covid,we had the rail catering.somebody would walk in the train,with coffee snacks etc
Way back before that we also had actual rail catering. With actual carts. This was back when the koploper still lived up to its name by having a walk through head.
So weird, I've never seen rail catering in my life. Wonder if it's only a thing in the Randstad?
@@MyrthexLatoya it was also at ic Berlin,and in intercity trains Utrecht/Maastricht/Venlo/Zwolle
@@frankgeurts3912 Ah okay, I've seen it from the outside in the DB to Berlin, but that's mostly an international train. I've never seen it in an NS train. Learnt something new :)
@@MyrthexLatoya I've seen it be a thing between Zwolle and Amersfoort, people with backpacks.
Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
With autism and obesity trans are for me the way to travel. Before I got a car that is. Still when I need to travel international I will rather take the train then a plane.
For me living in Gouda, I was always amazed at how many connections I had to, basically everywhere in my country. And then I could also take my bicycle with me.
Like before I had a car, I was so happy I could just go anywhere as a news and events photographer, without worrying. Trains were on time and so comfy and quite affordable.
Finally something positive about the dutch railroads. People forget too often how spoiled we are. I hope the NS can deploy more material soon, so the spoiled people will.also be happy again.
In Swiss trains are better and cheaper, but that's about the only country in western Europe that beats the Netherlands in quality and frequency. Mostly because towns and villages would get isolated if not for trains during Swiss winters.
Many of these comments from Europeans definitely have their fair share of critiques about the Dutch trains...meanwhile I live two hours drive from the nearest passenger train station in nowhere USA. I would just be so happy if I could live in the Northeast and use their rundown trains.
@@AssBlasster If you would draw circles of 8 km (5 miles) (30 minutes cycling) around every train station in the Netherlands, more than 90% of the population would live within those circles.
Other areas have fast bus connections to cities with a railway station.
So, yes! We are spoiled.
Most Dutch people do not like long daily commutes, and move to, or near, the city or town where they work or study.
A two hour drive would take you out of the country, wherever you live in the Netherlands.
@@dutchman7623 Pretty impressive coverage of the rail stations in the Netherlands! I can only imagine. I only got two buses a day (at $30 usd one-way) going to the nearest big city with the train station and a large airport, but it's suffice for me if I travel.
@@AssBlasster We, Dutch people, like to complain about everything. Especially the weather. But our country is lush and green, and has the highest agricultural export after the USA. So... even when we are blessed we complain and strive for better.
I saw you once @ Utrecht central station. I'm a train engineer.
Trains between Culemborg is simple for Culemborg is only a stop on the way going further on....There are many towns that don't have a train stop so you need a bus going to the town of your destination from the nearest train station....
The "Leaves on the track" thing most of the times is just a complaint out of frustration, and not so much that leaves are actually the issue. People here can get quite frustrated when the public transit has problems somewhere.
I am surprised about your pronounceiation of the Dutch city's. Very good 👍
You can even take the train to all the countries in Europa for a nice price...when i had my NS card i went to Brussels for a day...
Hi Ava. Distance is coming up a lot in this video and I was wondering: did you ever, or do you still feel that everything is too close together, too crammed and full, since there is a lot more free open space in the US?
Your question was not directed to me, but I like to make a remark. As Ava said, some areas in the US are as crowded as western Europe, the north east coast. Took the train from Washington DC to New York Penn. some ten years ago, and it looked as if it was the German Ruhrgebiet in the sixties. Large rusty industrial areas, clearly falling apart and with a lot of degrading factories. New York and surroundings are denser than the Randstad with less trees, parks, greens and a little bit desolate when you look at garbage in the streets, air pollution, patchwork roads, and overall lack of maintenance.
Like all companies complaining about worker shortage, the NS doesn't have a shortage of personnel. It has a problem with paying decent wages.
The train systems in the Netherlands are the busyist in the world. In the Netherlands riding every day 7000 trains cross the country and it wil be even more. NS has just buying 60 new double deckers with 4 parts and 60 with 6 passenger parts.
Trains in Sweden and Switzerland: 'WE EAT SNOW'
Trains in the Netherlands: 'Nooh! Leaves on the track! I cant ride in these dire circumstances!'
That's a problem in every country. Not just in the Netherlands. And you forget that the Netherlands has the busiest ridden railsystem in Europa
As someone who travels by train outside of the Randstad every day for university, it really is a question whether the regional train I have to take is really going every time, even when the planner apps say it will. After that I take a longer (also regional) train for ~1 hour, which is usually very crowded because it's not recognised as "busy", so they refuse to link another train, even though it's the only train going to the university outside of rush hours. Sometimes there's no seats left when I get on, even though I get on at the first station. They regularly skip 2 of the smaller stations closer to uni because it's already to crowded and nobody would fit.
I am happy that I get to travel for free though, because otherwise it would cost me €28 per day.
Seasons change - (1) leaves (in fall) on the tracks, or (2) frozen switches. There's more to that. (1) This is not an urban legend, but almost. The problem has two sides: (a) the wheels of a train have massive "iron" tires (rings) because of the weight (pressure) of the train and the small contact area between wheel and track but also to keep energetic rolling losses as low as possible. This means that the wheels would slip when the tracks are slippery - as can be caused by leaves on the tracks in fall. AFAIK special locomotives or trains ride the tracks once per 24h in the early morning before the start of the timetable in order to brush the tracks. In short, leaves on the tracks can happen but certainly not every year. It seems we want to add 1 million houses in the years to come and probably there will be no leaves to fall by then.
(2) As our railway network has fine granularity, it also has many switches. And, as you mention 6 or more trains per hour between Utrecht Central Station (CS) and Amsterdam CS, between Utrecht CS and Amsterdam CS there are switches for exits to other places/tracks. These switches may have to be operated several times per hour. This is never problem except when it is really freezing cold - ffing cold. It's not as if the engineers have designed this waiting for frost to happen, because each switch has its switch heater. When you travel by train and are near a railway station with switches, notice the cabinets next to the track with a text on them "wisselverwarming" (literally "switch heater"). These cabinets will have a tiny chimney.
The engineers who designed these made an assumption about the heating capacity that was required by copying, AFAIK, the capacity from the Swiss railway infrastructure. Switzerland has more cold spells that are colder, but is generally drier (so we would need less heating capacity here). And it generally has no more than 2 switch moments per hour (so we would need more heating capacity here). The engineers assumed these pluses and minuses would cancel each other out. Except they don't always in practice. Bottom line, under certain atmospheric/weather conditions the capacity is insufficient. And apparently we (as people, nation) accept this to happen a couple times per decade. It seems like we are waiting for global heating to solve the incidental problem.
In Luxembourg, the trains, tramways and buses are free of charge now.
We do have all train companies on the same stations. This is because of the rail network not being owned by the train company. The dutch rail system is an independant company in itself
It depends on the region if NS messes up, in some regions it's less than in other regions.
Hi Ava! Nice breakdown of train operations in the Netherlands and the USA. Compared to the New York - Boston trip in the Netherlands Den Helder - Maastricht would give a better comparisson in travel time. Both a bit longer than 4 Hours. The 3 Hours NY - Boston is by Acela, which travels a lot faster than the normal operation. On the other hand there is the frequency of service. Den Helder - Maastricht is twice an hour. I was unable to determine the NY - Boston schedule. Perhaps somebody can tell me about that aspect. Finally, reservations... if the frequency of servece is inadequate for the requirement of service usually a reservation system is applied, thus preventing people from standing during the ride eg. on Eurostar or Thalys, which you also don't want due to the speeds in exces of 300Kmh. Further there is a major difference between the rail infrastructure in US and Netherlands. In the US corridors have been privetly owned (until AMtrack came into existence), While in the Netherlands the privately owned railroad companies (first in 1837) were nationalized in 1937 into NS, which not only owned the trains but also the tracks. Currently Prorail ownes nearly all the tracks in the Netherlands (over 3700km). NS established an integral net of railroadtracks in the country. In the Netherlands there are other train operators as you mentioned. They have a licence to exploit a certain route, but they don't own the tracks. The check-in check-out system in the Netherlands with the OV chipcard was introduced in the 2006-2014 period, so it's a recent development.
Fair points and that’s interesting!
Dear Eva...let me compliment you on your Dutch. You pronounce the names correct, and we as Dutch people like it when someone from abroud does that. So thank you. 😘😘
Same weather issues affect trains in UK.
The Dutch say about the railways that "they take your from where you are not, to where you don't need to be, at the time that doesn't suite you". That may seems strange if most of the travelling you do is within the Randstad, but it is very true everywhere else. Also you mentioned that the railways inform you when things change. Well that is precisely what the railways are very bad at. You wouldn't believe the number of times that I have been travelling to the airport with my suitcase and NS kept telling me to go to a different track and eventually you end up, soaked in sweat, sitting in a train that gets cancelled. Love your videos Ava. Keep it up.
I mean, we complain about everything. I travel to and from randstad every now and again, rarely have issues with canceling trains, different rails, times, etc. We'll complain if the train is 1 minute delayed ffs
Have to smile at this one, it's usually car drivers that feel a need to justify their use of a car who say so. Mostly quite ignorant of public transport realities.
@@t.vanoosterhout233 I much prefer taking trains to the airport over cars. But when you're travelling for business and need to align your flight with the departure of the first train of the day (outside the Randstad), things become quite challenging. And if that first train is cancelled or delayed, that sort of ruins the meetings you had scheduled for the day. Also when arriving back at Schiphol during the rush hour, I always take the direct train to where I need to go (fortunately those exist before 20:00) even if it is not the first one, because if you don't, you need to change trains and you and your suitcase find yourself stranded half way up the stairs of the train and that is quite unpleasant for 90 minute or so. And whoever decided that using trains with no room to store suitcases on the route to Schiphol, must be a genius. I suspect your reaction was to my "train from where you are not" comment. But just imagine taking public transport if you're not in the center of a large city and you'll realize that statement is actually very accurate.
Every station in the Netherlands,have a minimum of 2 trains per hour and Max 8 trains per hour(its in the convent between the government and ns)we have the most used rail network in the world
Haha, national complain towards NS: We joke about leaves on the track in autumn. We complain if the train is 5min late. If u have no OV Chip card, you can buy 1 ticket at the station, even if you need to travel with 2 train companies, no probs. Prices are fixed whenever or when you book. Thalys to Paris is only in NL you have to book a reserved seat.
I took 'pleasure' in telling American students that there is a direct train to Paris in approx. 3 hours from Amsterdam which takes you right into the city center and is fully bookable on line and on the same day and you can go straight to the station. So what are you doing here ? The look I got was quite amusing . And have I mentioned the Channel Tunnel train takes you straight to London ,England ? They walked away shaking their heads...
Sorry to bust youre illusion the FLIXbuss is a succesor from i believe Eurostar busses (or something like that can't remember the name) and they where around for decades at least, i took them when i was a teenager and my early twentys when i didn't have any money (i'm over 50 now).
Funny, when the NOS weerbericht predicts snow, everybody switches to travel by train instead of car, bus, bicycle.
No wonder the NS gets into trouble, with this passenger explosion, and when the snowflakes really drop, it's even harder to cope.
We should 'work from home' in case of storm or snow. Better for you, your employer, and the NS.
damn, 135 dollars is insane. One of the cheapest options from amsterdam to paris in comfortclass is 81 euro's....
Nice train vlog! The trains here are not so bad as everybody thinks
I sometimes find myself complaining too, and then I have to take a step back and remember that it could be worse!
Dutch rail is not perfect, but it is still one o the better nation systems. I am just old enough to remember tickets were pre-printed with your destination station. They used to have a giant rack of tickets behind the agent. They then converted to "printed on the spot" either by a ticket agent or kiosk. In NL (and Europe as a whole) public transportation is so good that it's completely normal for young adults to ride solo. I remember being 13 and my sister 15 going back "home" and going on NS day trips for youth. We'd take a bus form Monnickendam to Amsterdam Central. Buy the combined youth day trip (Eindhoven for Evoluon, Efteling, and others). The ticket has the train fair, bus fair, and entrance fees all in one. No one thought it was strange for your teens to go across a country to sight see. In North America child protective services would be called. In the 70's and 80's Dutch rail was amazing... then it was decided that privatizing would be great and magically operating costs would somehow go down. Not so much. From what I heard from my relatives back home, it took a good decade before they got back to anywhere near as good as they used to be. I am a bit of a train nut (nerd) and it's also amazing to see how they keep upgrading the rolling stock. I've ridden on Long Island Rail Road, Metro North, Baltimore to DC (don't recall it's name). All of them had ancient rolling stock. It rocked a lot, wasn't quiet, and they seems to squeeze in more people per row than the NS. Thanks for sharing your comments and perceptions of the NS
Try to travel during rush our. That was always a hassle with crowed trains you only can stand it back to back and have to fight to get on and get off.
Love your videos, Ava. Your description of Amtrak in the Northeast is quite different from most other parts of the States. I live in Chicago and my daughter goe to college in a smaller city about 220 kilometers southwest. Fortunately there is an Amtrak line there, however, there are only 4 trains a day and the trip takes about 2 hours and 10 minutes. For those who don't know, Chicago is as good as it gets for trains west of the Northeast corridor. In our case, the destination city is Bloomington, IL, a "college town". The trip time is on paper only. The trains are never on time. And by never, I don't mean it as someone might complain, "This train is never on time". The train has never been on time for any of her trips. In the Midwest (where Chicago is), Amtrak shares all of its tracks with freight. The freight trains take priority, so Amtrak waits; and the weight of the freights makes the tracks less consistent, so the ride is rough and slower than the trains are actually capable of. This isn't meant to bash Amtrak; I think it is great and does a great job operating in a difficult environment where the American public can not imagine going anywhere without a car; Amtrak isn't funded properly.
I’ve heard that before about taking the train from Chicago to Bloomington. Agree about the funding
The reason we complain a lot about trains is 1. we complain about everything, national hobby number 1 but 2. it used to be way better. Dutch railways used to be a lot more reliable.
Having decent enough experience with public transport in 3 countries I can say Czechia > Netherlands > UK by a large margin, not even close.
love the way you pronounce my province, Friesland. Was nice to hear an American say, Frisia.. Try to pronounce that name Friesland in the Frisian language :) cya in Frisian oant sjen!
I like it when you speak Dutch 😂🤣 er is altijd wat 🤣😂
The Dutch are often complaining about the railways and comparing them with other countries to "prove" how bad the dutch railways are and how we get laught at by foreigners about bad we are at it.
When i talk about it to foreigners, they often are nothing but praise. They know how bad it can be in "their" countries. And how lucky we are for having our system as it is.
Ava, lucky you! Utrecht is not only in the centre of the Netherlands, but the Netherlands themselves are in the middle of Germany, France and the United Kingdom. But what you didn't mention is my personal pride: the NS-fiets! Nearly every station in the Netherlands has a take as you like NS rent a bike, for about 3 euro's a day! Cost of membership? 0,01 Eurocent 🙂
It's 4,15 now but indeed, it is a great system. E-bike rental is also being rolled out, for 10 euros a day.
People just don't understand how the human brain works. You can have 99 train rides perfectly on time but you"ll remember the one that did not. Winter is normally no problem only in very rare severe cold combined with strong wind the lane switch heating system can't cope, that's the day people remember even if it happened 6 years ago. And even you Eva, it doesn't rain a lot 😉 infact we're in a drought for several years now. Just put a little mark on a calender for each day that rain has the upper hand and see how they compare after a year or so, the rainy days are just the one you remember. It's our survival mechanism.
Lots of the small stations are just open platforms and no shops or vending machines
Depends on how small is 'small'. The "stoeptegels naast het spoor"-type stations, sure. But there are also a lot of stations that would probably be considered small by US standards, but that nevertheless have shops, such as Rosmalen. That having been said, the stations without shops _really_ need at least a coffee vending machine!
@@crytocc lots of stations where just the sprinter stops or the regional stoptrein. Are the small stations according to the railroad companies, what's considered small in American standards doesn't matter at all it's about the Netherlands
$130??? I just spent 3 days traveling between Utrecht and Amsterdam (and then back to Groningen) due to Amsterdam Dance Event and have spent that much in TOTAL. I can't begin to imagine paying that much for a 1-way trip
I know right?
What I particularly don't like of travelling by train is that almost everyone even older people stares at their phone. No one looks out of the window anymore or reads a book. People are so focused on their phone. I like to observe people on how much they take out their phone during a train ride. That's quite a lot actually. I really don't like this 'mobile culture'. 90% of my trips I do not even carry my phone with me. I deliberately leave it at home. But when I do have my phone with me I don't fear this such compulsive behaviour. I don't feel the urge to take out my phone, not even when it makes a notification sound. It's a shame that about everyone still shifts on that fast-moving fast-communicating world even on the train. What happened to 'sit back and relax, enjoy the train ride.' Watch some grazing cows and sheep in the wide dutch meadows.
Lol if you're having the same commute every single day the view can get boring. And what's even wrong with looking at your phone? For all you know these people are relaxing and reading a book or playing a wordgame. They probably are 'sitting back and relaxing, enjoying the train ride' 🤡
Unlike driving where you have to operate the vehicle, the beauty of a train is the freedom to do whatever you want, even judging people in your head while you enjoy the view!
Eva, it is not like that in the entire country.
It shows from your review that you live in the Randstad.
If I want to travel to Amsterdam from where I live, 135KM distance, I first have to take a bus to a nearby town, mine doesn't have railways, that bus goes twice an hour, no reservations necessary, that is true.
Arriving at the train station, I will find out that the bus schedule is not the same as the train's (bus arrival at 15.04, train departure 15.01 "THANK YOU") and have to wait maybe half an hour for the train to Zutphen on a platform without kiosk or coffee stall, at most there is a half wall to hide from the wind.
By the time the train comes in, I'm cold and miserable, from there on though it should be a breeze.
The station in Zutphen is larger, kiosks and coffee in the hall, not on the platforms.
However, there is no train directly from Zutphen to Amsterdam, I will have to switch between different trains 3 times.
The closer you get to the Randstad, the smoother it goes.
Likewise, the further you get from the Randstad, the more waiting time is added to your schedule.
Total travel time is a little over 2 hours, so that is still good.
Cost : €23,24 single trip
I don't regularly travel by train.
On the whole I get your frustration, but you can always go to Apeldoorn --> Amsterdam or Arnhem --> Amsterdam if you're coming from Zutphen. No need for 3 different switches.
@@MyrthexLatoya Certainly, although I count 1) Bus, 2) Train to Zutphen, 3) Train from Zutphen to destination, any other switch adds more time, although it becomes less the closer we get to the Randstad.
For hospital services, my area is depending on the hospital in Winterswijk, however to get there by bus, I have to use 2 different lines that are not synchronized (read: waiting upto half an hour in the middle of nowhere)
For that reason, I choose a hospital in Enschede, 1 direct line.
It is a tad further away, but I prefer a warm bus to a cold wait for half an hour.
It may seem that I'm continuously frustrated, I'm actually not.
I'm actually relaxed, it is not that I have to visit larger cities every other week.
Once or twice a year, I can suck it up.
I rather live here, surrounded by forest and farms, then live in a city with everything within reach.
It is a choice.
These months they aren't. Many are canceled on the spot due to worker shortage.
Distance wise it would have been better to take a train from Leeuwarden to Maastricht. Two larger cities (by Dutch standards) over the longest possible distance. Still less than 300km dough ;-)
the dutch people have a reason to complain since after privatisation of the rails everything got worse. But it is still better then in a lot of different country's
If you compare similar distance to the ones in the USA you talk about, then you should compare international trains. Then you get onto the TGVs or high-speed trains. E.g. Amsterdam - Paris (500 km, 315 American miles) takes 3 hours, including a stop in Brussels South that takes up half an hour. These trains speed up to 300 km/h and more. China and northern Europe are full of them. The US has none.
12:48 oh youve been to my city :D
Weirdest reason I have heard for the train not going "there's goats along the track"
Let me explain why I prefer to use my car instead of taking a train in The Netherlands.........First of alll, the costs, it is cheaper to drive with my car, because the prices of the train are REALLY REALLY expensive in The Netherlands!! Secondly, it is easy to talk from Utrecht to Amsterdam, but for instance, when you have to go from the north (where I live) to the south or to the west of the country you need a lot more time by train because of the stop-overs, and yes, that includes traffic jams. I don't even start about the prices, because it is my opinion that trains should be affordable to minimum prices while in fact here in The Netherlands they use MAXIMUM prices! And not even to mention the fact of the leafs on the rails, which is actually a bad excuse for having the wrong rails, I know what I am talking about, I traveled by train in Poland and went from south to north, Poland is a lot bigger, with -36 celsius during the winter I had at that time I didn't loose a minute, for a tenth of the price in The Netherlands!! Therefor I still prefer a car!! Thumbs up!!
So, Ava, if I may, you actually say (and your would be very rightful in this) that the train concept in the US is vastly over monetized. (as is very much everything else).😬🧐
When is your next video?
I am a regular long distance Amtrak commuter. I have used trains in the Netherlands, UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany. All of them are a million times better than Amtrak. We have hundred year old right of ways that don't permit high speed operation and have to share the rails with freight trains that often have priority. This assures poor speed and on time performance. The trains are thus expensive and slow. None of this should surprise anyone. The US has no commitment to public transportation.
sounds like Amtrax is a lot like NS HighSpeed Thalys, Eurostar and ICE are also a lot cheaper if you reserve 3 months in advance and very expencive last minute.
But is the ticket still more expensive in the US in relation to the average salary? I assume there is a difference in salary between the two countries, not sure who has the highest average income as this may make you feel the ticket costs in your wallet or not.
11:14 I bet is is that expensive because all second and first class seats are taken and you are left with the full meal & free-drinks-all-the-way included pamper class seats. Not?
No, not.
The Dutch train system is a victim of it’s own success.
And Dutch like to compare to German or French system and claim that’s better, but it’s a case of the grass being always greener on the other side.
With the exception of the local rail companies in the far north/south of the country, when you buy a ticket, you can get any train you want, (okay mostly, when going from Rotterdam to Schiphol via the High speed line you are required to buy a supplement of 3€), so you are not tied to a certain service or time frame.
If you want you can get the regional service (sprinter), thé intercity service or the High Speed service (ICD).
On all trains ran by NS, this makes much simpler for tourists and commuters to go back and forth without ever looking at the time table or looking at the time, you are going from A to B and how you get there is your choice.
In Germany, where I lives, the train system is much more complicated, there are the metropolitan train (S-bahn) that’s normally tied with the same ticketing as the metro and busses, then you have regional services, intercity services and high speed services, the tickets are different for each service, and often for some of those services you have an specific time, so you can’t just decide to take a train later or earlier. This gives the advantage of being able to reserve seats, but I rather prefer to take a risk in taking a non-rush hour train and hope to have a seat then being tied down to an specific time.
Since trains in The Netherlands are also regularly so often and all lines are so interconnected, when troubles occur, sadly it means that the whole country stops, but it’s an small price to pay for having a system that’s modern and reliable for most of the time.
I just hope that issues at NS and ProRail will get sorted out soon.
Question. Has the English of the Netherlands (which I believe is mostly British/English English) ever caused you any issues since you clearly speak American? I'm curious for example you kept saying trash can but most people would know it as a rubbish/trash bin right?
I'd be surprised if it caused many issues: there is so much American English in the media that it largely drowns out the British English taught most often in schools! (I'm a Dutch near-native speaker of British English, I teach English at university and I keep discovering Americanisms that I've been using unsuspectingly for decades!)
My Dutch friends tell me they speak more American English because of TV and Films.
Dutch people don’t know how good they have it.