The Amsterdam – Utrecht route is one of the busiest train trajectories in the Netherlands. In order to meet the demands of the increasing number of passengers, State Secretary of Infrastructure and Water Management Van Veldhoven is pressing ahead with plans to make more seats available in the train on this route.

Bringing plans forward

Currently, trains with no more than 10 carriages can travel on the Schiphol – Nijmegen route, which includes stops in Amsterdam Zuid and Utrecht. To allow for longer trains, necessary adjustments need to be made to Nijmegen station. At the request of Van Veldhoven and the province of Gelderland, ProRail is bringing the plans to make these adjustments forward by three years.

Once adjustments are made to Nijmegen station, trains with 12 carriages will be able to travel on the tracks. This will result in a 20 percent increase in the number of seats, or in other words, 200 extra seats compared to the 1.000 available now on trains with 10 carriages.

According to the government, this measure is much needed, as the number of passengers is increasing rapidly. Longer trains should be up and running on the Nijmegen – Schiphol route in the autumn of 2019.

A better train network in the Netherlands

In addition to making it possible for longer trains to travel via the Schiphol – Nijmegen route, Van Veldhoven is also making 135 million euros available for plans that are currently being developed. Said plans will allow for more trains per hours on the Schiphol – Nijmegen route, an extra platform at Nijmegen station, an extension of the platform tunnel and train depot. Work on these plans will be carried out between 2022 and 2026.

In other parts of the Netherlands, work is also being done to increase convenience for those travelling by train. For example, in October, work started on a project to add an extra hi-speed train to the tracks on the Groningen – Leeuwarden route. From 2020, this will mean that twice as many trains can operate in the northern Netherlands compared with how many operate at present.