Cheers from a transport planner in The Hague 😊 you pretty much got the facts right. One thing you forgot to mention is that both these systems are running parallel to mainline rail with high frequencies (hence the ridership decline of the former Zoetermeer and Hofplein lines)
whoa, a transit planner in the hague? that’s so cool, you must have the best job ever: urban planning in a place where carbrained people are not in charge of everything!
Line B of the Rotterdam metro is also (partly) a converted heavy-rail line, similar to line E. It got a weirdness upgrade a year and a half ago with its new terminal station, which is _on the beach._
You're really lucky! I'd love to go to The Netherlands and ride their trains! You got to go and not only ride their trains, but got to ride their weirdest lines! I'm planning this week to ride Dearborn, Michigan's weirdest train line!
Line 11 was originally designed by the HIJSM, a railway company. It was designed as a heavy rail line but used by steam trams, who are lightrail (quite simular as line E is today). You can see this because the line has his own right of way, and doesn't share tracks with streets. The line even had irregularly freight service until the 90s, using special electric locomotives. The HTM (municipal tramways) eventually bought line 11 from HIJSM, electrified it and making it more and more aligned to the regular network.
De Uithof is the destination, it used to be the ice skate ring, now it's a multi sport complex. A big park too though. There's another loop at the end of line 2, at Kraayensteinlaan.
Dude when did u travel in that, I might have seen you by the way, you're completely right about the few stations next to centrum-west only travelling to centrum-west to change there. I often go from 'Delftsewallen' to 'Driemanspolder', because I have to get on the train there, but even then walking is faster than waiting for the tram and walking across the bridge anyways.
I think you need to practice on Dutch combination vowels and combination consonants. A quick lesson. Dutch "oe" is English "oo". Dutch "eu" is German/Swedish "ö". Dutch "ui" is unique in the world I am afraid. Dutch "IJ" is actually one letter and it is more or less pronounced as English "I". Dutch "ng" is pronounced as English "ng" (as in strong). The Dutch "e" in second syllabi or in the last syllabus is mostly pronounced "uh" (schwa). And also, slow down. Nobody understood the tram line map. Take a few minutes to explain the logic of the lines.
nice video man! and btw, if you like weird transit and wanna have some fun, you should try the ParkShuttle in Rotterdam, is is like a line where automated 'pods' bring you to your destination along the line
Yeah it's quirky and weird, but it's a pretty bad system. Building tracks would've been cheaper than the dedicated bus road, easier to integrate into the rest of the Rotterdam transit network, easier to make autonomous, and would look better than the wide sheet of asphalt
DAMMIT ROTTERDAM!!!!!!!!!!! YOURE DOING TECH BRO TRANSIT TOO? in all seriousness, if you want to see me ranting about electric pods, check out my video entitled “New York’s STUPIDEST Transit” from a month or so ago
@@MrThijmenmees yea I agree bro, if you think about it it is pretty stupid to build it, especially because it doesn't (yet) connect to anything else then a random business park. there were plans like a few years ago to make it run in the middle of other traffic to connect it to a water bus, they built all the infrastructure for it, but no progress has been made in the past 4 years or so. but they are fun to ride on when it is not all too busy 🙂
Being born in the Loosduinen area in The Hague and having lived in Zoetermeer for 27 years it’s so funny to see this video. I now live next to the Metro E line around the corner from the Pijnacker Centrum station (the one in the tunnel in the middle of a rural village). I visit places around the world for work often and have traveled on the Minneapolis lightrail, the NYC subway, Tokyo and Osaka metro, the Shinkansen, Paris metro, London underground, Italian intercity trains, Shanghai metro and many others I don’t remember from the top of my head but all are so totally different. It’s so fascinating! Though I’m more into aviation to be honest. Your pronunciation of Dutch names is hilarious btw, very entertaining!
The section of line E between The Hague and Rotterdam runs the route of the first Dutch electrified train line, from 1908. It was built by some owners of companies in the Rotterdam harbor, but lived in The Hague. They didn't want to take the filthy steam train, so laid their own line. Furthermore, for a long time it was also used to transport vegetables from the intermediate villages to the cities. This makes the line particular.
Where you now dive into a tunnel just before the center of Rotterdam, the train line ran straight across a viaduct over the highway, over an elevated track to the terminus at Hofplein. This terminus had no direct connection to any other railroad, while the terminus was directly adjacent to another railroad. But fortunately it was within walking distance from Rotterdam Central Station.
Rotterdam metro is perpetually dirty, in general Rotterdam is a pretty dirty city LOL But yeah don't expect clean public transit here tbh, there's a lot of cost cutting on the cleaning and people are kinda antisocial making everything dirty. Also, lots of seats is a thing on all Rotterdam metro lines (it's also a thing on our Sprinter trains), it's just bad design. Amsterdam got some common sense with their newer metro units having more standing space and transverse seating, but there's still far too few hand holds. Then again, the Dutch definition of a "busy" train is one where you have to sit next to a stranger... The metro isn't really a link between the two cities, it kinda serves the same purpose as the Zoetermeer line, connecting a bunch of suburbia to the main city stations and cores. The main link between Den Haag and Rotterdam is the rail line.
Cleanliness could be better, and has been better in the past, but I would not say it's terrible. And I disagree that lots of seating is bad design, for the longer trips the Rotterdam Metro also makes, you need a higher level of comfort than just standing room only.
Loved the quick history about this line. I rode the old version many times and could never wrap my head around the weird loop in Zoetermeer and figure out which train to take in which direction to get back to The Hague. About the Randstad, Utrecht is also considered part of it and I think nowadays we also consider the southern half of Flevoland part of it. It’s rather an economical part of the county instead of a geographical though. But to confuse the hell out of people they decided to call a lightrail line that only runs through Zuid-Holland Randstadrail, sorry about that 😂
Oh I love the randstadrail vehicles the Regio Citadis is one of my favourite modern trams. There seats are the most comfortable out of all trams in the country, there very reliable and are very good looking.
Oh btw, you might like rhein ruhr tram/lightrail subway systems. They are completely connected starting from bochum and ending in large cities like Essen, Duisburg, Dusseldorf, Krefeld and Neuss (sadly Dortmund isn’t connected to Bochum yet)
Streetcars used to ran to parks (usually they added rides at some point so they became amusement parks. You have the Norristown High Speed Line where the line has long outlived the amusement park or Clementon Park and Lake Compounce where the park has long outlived the streetcar)
I love Holland, I am always impressed with the Dutch people's language skills, seems everyone speak flawless English as well as untold other languages. When it comes European Metro, I would put Stockholm Sweden on your must visit list, really unique and colorful stations
10:00 its so people gonna use public transport more but also because it makes sence. these are big public & import buildings alot of people are gonna visit so makes sence to make a bus-tram transit point there. also the older tram at 10:00 is an GTL8 (gelede Tram lang-8) & are a custom design from the HTM it self. while they are old & now sadly getting replaced i find them much more confy & easier to stand in dual the metal bars also bonus points for trying to pronaunce our words. i often switch from bus 456 to tram line 4 or 6 to get to Den Haag Centraal
One aspect of the OV Chip card payment you forgot ! HTM has on board readers. RET on mayor stations has gates as national rail, in between there are readers at the platform.this aswell as national rail, On beep In, Two beeps Ouf !
You could probably have asked someone how names are pronounced. Most Dutchmen are happy to instruct our phonetically challenged brothers and sisters in rest of the world, ie. everyone else, in the way god intended letters to be pronounced, as we're the only ones that seem to be getting it right. 😜 You would have learned that you could simply have pronounced "Zoet" as "Soot" instead of that complicated "z-oh-eh-t" with which you're putting the tip of your tongue in mortal danger of being bitten off. 😁 (Knowing my fellow Dutchmen they'd probably throw in some interesting new curses with which to impress your friends and neighbours, entertain impressionable young children and scare off small predators.)
Just to help you out with any future videos... dutch has a number of digraphs (two letters resembling a single sound) that aren't hard to learn but will make your discussion of dutch places a lot easier. In Zoetermeer, the 'oe' digraph is pronounced like the 'oo' in 'wood'. In Leiden, the 'ei' digraph is sort of pronounced like the i in 'wide' or 'side'. Same goes for the 'ij' digraph. The word 'fiets' (bicycle) has the 'ie' digraph pronounced like 'ee' in 'weed'. (But to be clear: the dutch 'ee' digraph is pronounced as the a in 'ate'.) The 'au' and 'ou' digraphs are pronounced like the 'ow' in 'how'. Besides that, the 'J' in 'Javalaan' is pronounced like an English y as in 'you' or 'yank'. 3:53 - Not quite correct; the name has nothing to do with the provinces. The 'Randstad' is just a description of the 'border of cities' that describes the crescent-like area made up of Utrecht (province Utrecht), Amsterdam (province North Holland), Rotterdam and The Hague (provice South Holland). It it where the majority of population and thus traffic and 'urban' society tends to concentrate itself.
@@honajtransit grammar is a little hard, with our split composite verbs, secondary sentences with the verb at the end, numbers that are reversed like in German etc, but pronunciation is easier, as soon as you get the sounds right, including those that don't exist in English, there are hardly any exception, unlike English.
@@honajtransit It's fantastic tow other underground railways to try: the one in Glasgow and the old Royal Mail Undergound in London - it's as if USPS had their own subway and it's open to the public to ride
RET Line E is weird? Why? You should have seen the former trains on the (almost) same track. Thát was weird. And slow. And dirty. And noisy. And very empty. And had a terrible terminus, Rotterdam Hofplein. For me there's not that much weird about line E. It does what it has to do: connecting two major city centers quickly with a lot of suburbs. The only mistake is the missing station at the airport.
Oe, like in Zoetermeer is pronounced like oo in good. I like to see what surprises you, whereas I (65 years) have seen it develope. Den Haag you pronounce remarkely well!!
The tram/metro system in and around The Hague turned out so interesting as it makes use of old rail lines where it can. Tram 1 runs from the small city of Delft through The Hague out to Scheveningen beach over more old railway lines, providing a lot more quirks you'd love. The fastest link between The Hague, Delft, Schiedam and Rotterdam is normally the regular train service, but the trams and metro are perfect for anyone who wants to get in and out of the sprawl of suburbs in between the city centres.
Have to add that Metro line can sometimes be almost just as quick as train and then metro when you have to be in a specific spot in Rotterdam. As the transfer also takes some time, so sometmes it is only like 5-10 min difference in total.
There's another "used to be a train" line. the #1 tramline between The Hague and Delft, along the Vliet. It's the old regional tramline. There were many of those, connecting the countryside to the city.
An The Hague Centraal Station the City liner The Train does not stop Above Hey was stopping on the Train station end the train now to Zoetermeer is also stopping on the Train station
As a Zoetermeer native you are allowed to say Sweet Lake City
Is dat een Laura H grapje
😁👍
Is het niet gewoon "Sweeterlake" ?
079 mag ook
More Sweeter we say
Cheers from a transport planner in The Hague 😊 you pretty much got the facts right. One thing you forgot to mention is that both these systems are running parallel to mainline rail with high frequencies (hence the ridership decline of the former Zoetermeer and Hofplein lines)
whoa, a transit planner in the hague? that’s so
cool, you must have the best job ever: urban planning in a place where carbrained people are not in charge of everything!
@@honajtransitI think that’s not entirely the case. Cars are still dominant in our overcrowded country.
Line B of the Rotterdam metro is also (partly) a converted heavy-rail line, similar to line E. It got a weirdness upgrade a year and a half ago with its new terminal station, which is _on the beach._
Yes, Hoek van Holland!
Good heavens, you went to Slinge. That's dedication.
Guy got balls of steel.
Love the way you pronounce Slinge, never heard that in my entire life. But from now on, I will keep saying it your way! 😃
You're really lucky! I'd love to go to The Netherlands and ride their trains! You got to go and not only ride their trains, but got to ride their weirdest lines! I'm planning this week to ride Dearborn, Michigan's weirdest train line!
dearborn, michigan has a train?
@@honajtransit Yes there's a train ride around there at Greenfield Village or somewhere near there
Line 11 was originally designed by the HIJSM, a railway company. It was designed as a heavy rail line but used by steam trams, who are lightrail (quite simular as line E is today). You can see this because the line has his own right of way, and doesn't share tracks with streets. The line even had irregularly freight service until the 90s, using special electric locomotives. The HTM (municipal tramways) eventually bought line 11 from HIJSM, electrified it and making it more and more aligned to the regular network.
De Uithof is the destination, it used to be the ice skate ring, now it's a multi sport complex. A big park too though.
There's another loop at the end of line 2, at Kraayensteinlaan.
I think we need a deeper analysis of the Hague and Cleveland.
Dude when did u travel in that, I might have seen you
by the way, you're completely right about the few stations next to centrum-west only travelling to centrum-west to change there. I often go from 'Delftsewallen' to 'Driemanspolder', because I have to get on the train there, but even then walking is faster than waiting for the tram and walking across the bridge anyways.
this was filmed back in july!
I think you need to practice on Dutch combination vowels and combination consonants. A quick lesson. Dutch "oe" is English "oo". Dutch "eu" is German/Swedish "ö". Dutch "ui" is unique in the world I am afraid. Dutch "IJ" is actually one letter and it is more or less pronounced as English "I". Dutch "ng" is pronounced as English "ng" (as in strong). The Dutch "e" in second syllabi or in the last syllabus is mostly pronounced "uh" (schwa). And also, slow down. Nobody understood the tram line map. Take a few minutes to explain the logic of the lines.
thanks for the dutch-language tips, it is not an easy language!
nice video man! and btw, if you like weird transit and wanna have some fun, you should try the ParkShuttle in Rotterdam, is is like a line where automated 'pods' bring you to your destination along the line
Yeah it's quirky and weird, but it's a pretty bad system. Building tracks would've been cheaper than the dedicated bus road, easier to integrate into the rest of the Rotterdam transit network, easier to make autonomous, and would look better than the wide sheet of asphalt
DAMMIT ROTTERDAM!!!!!!!!!!! YOURE DOING TECH BRO TRANSIT TOO?
in all seriousness, if you want to see me ranting about electric pods, check out my video entitled “New York’s STUPIDEST Transit” from a month or so ago
@@honajtransit haha thank you I will definitely watch that one!!
@@MrThijmenmees yea I agree bro, if you think about it it is pretty stupid to build it, especially because it doesn't (yet) connect to anything else then a random business park.
there were plans like a few years ago to make it run in the middle of other traffic to connect it to a water bus, they built all the infrastructure for it, but no progress has been made in the past 4 years or so.
but they are fun to ride on when it is not all too busy 🙂
Being born in the Loosduinen area in The Hague and having lived in Zoetermeer for 27 years it’s so funny to see this video. I now live next to the Metro E line around the corner from the Pijnacker Centrum station (the one in the tunnel in the middle of a rural village). I visit places around the world for work often and have traveled on the Minneapolis lightrail, the NYC subway, Tokyo and Osaka metro, the Shinkansen, Paris metro, London underground, Italian intercity trains, Shanghai metro and many others I don’t remember from the top of my head but all are so totally different. It’s so fascinating! Though I’m more into aviation to be honest. Your pronunciation of Dutch names is hilarious btw, very entertaining!
The section of line E between The Hague and Rotterdam runs the route of the first Dutch electrified train line, from 1908. It was built by some owners of companies in the Rotterdam harbor, but lived in The Hague. They didn't want to take the filthy steam train, so laid their own line. Furthermore, for a long time it was also used to transport vegetables from the intermediate villages to the cities. This makes the line particular.
Where you now dive into a tunnel just before the center of Rotterdam, the train line ran straight across a viaduct over the highway, over an elevated track to the terminus at Hofplein. This terminus had no direct connection to any other railroad, while the terminus was directly adjacent to another railroad. But fortunately it was within walking distance from Rotterdam Central Station.
We do have as well Tram-Train Lines in Switzerland. From Bern to Worb (6) and from Zürich to Esslingen (S18)
yes, when i was in switzerland, i tried to ride the S18 but it was shut down!
Rotterdam metro is perpetually dirty, in general Rotterdam is a pretty dirty city LOL But yeah don't expect clean public transit here tbh, there's a lot of cost cutting on the cleaning and people are kinda antisocial making everything dirty.
Also, lots of seats is a thing on all Rotterdam metro lines (it's also a thing on our Sprinter trains), it's just bad design. Amsterdam got some common sense with their newer metro units having more standing space and transverse seating, but there's still far too few hand holds. Then again, the Dutch definition of a "busy" train is one where you have to sit next to a stranger...
The metro isn't really a link between the two cities, it kinda serves the same purpose as the Zoetermeer line, connecting a bunch of suburbia to the main city stations and cores. The main link between Den Haag and Rotterdam is the rail line.
That's very sad to hear about public transit in Rotterdam being dirty and in the Netherlands in general.
@@Neville60001 Since last year i haven't been in a dutch train for over 30 years. I was absolutely stunned with the mess. Looked like a landfill.
Cleanliness could be better, and has been better in the past, but I would not say it's terrible.
And I disagree that lots of seating is bad design, for the longer trips the Rotterdam Metro also makes, you need a higher level of comfort than just standing room only.
oe is just oo like in loop. any appearance of u isn't oo but an ü sound or a schwa.
Loved the quick history about this line. I rode the old version many times and could never wrap my head around the weird loop in Zoetermeer and figure out which train to take in which direction to get back to The Hague.
About the Randstad, Utrecht is also considered part of it and I think nowadays we also consider the southern half of Flevoland part of it. It’s rather an economical part of the county instead of a geographical though.
But to confuse the hell out of people they decided to call a lightrail line that only runs through Zuid-Holland Randstadrail, sorry about that 😂
Oh I love the randstadrail vehicles the Regio Citadis is one of my favourite modern trams. There seats are the most comfortable out of all trams in the country, there very reliable and are very good looking.
Oh btw, you might like rhein ruhr tram/lightrail subway systems. They are completely connected starting from bochum and ending in large cities like Essen, Duisburg, Dusseldorf, Krefeld and Neuss (sadly Dortmund isn’t connected to Bochum yet)
Streetcars used to ran to parks (usually they added rides at some point so they became amusement parks. You have the Norristown High Speed Line where the line has long outlived the amusement park or Clementon Park and Lake Compounce where the park has long outlived the streetcar)
Drievliet between The Hague and Delft was such a destination on the old The Hague - Delft tramline, now the #1
the high park in toronto has the 506 streetcar. also a park near the EU parliament in strasbourg has a tram to that park
oh interesting, this is further proof that i need to get my butt to toronto
I love Holland, I am always impressed with the Dutch people's language skills, seems everyone speak flawless English as well as untold other languages. When it comes European Metro, I would put Stockholm Sweden on your must visit list, really unique and colorful stations
10:00 its so people gonna use public transport more but also because it makes sence. these are big public & import buildings alot of people are gonna visit so makes sence to make a bus-tram transit point there. also the older tram at 10:00 is an GTL8 (gelede Tram lang-8) & are a custom design from the HTM it self.
while they are old & now sadly getting replaced i find them much more confy & easier to stand in dual the metal bars
also bonus points for trying to pronaunce our words. i often switch from bus 456 to tram line 4 or 6 to get to Den Haag Centraal
When you mentioned Utrecht, I had assumed you were on the Regiotram Utrecht, but RandstadRail is fun, too.
the ad wrap thumbnail is funny
fair enough but i really liked that shot
One aspect of the OV Chip card payment you forgot ! HTM has on board readers. RET on mayor stations has gates as national rail, in between there are readers at the platform.this aswell as national rail, On beep In, Two beeps Ouf !
indeed, i used an OV-chipkaart for most of my travels, but since there was that cheaper daypass, i used that here!
You could probably have asked someone how names are pronounced. Most Dutchmen are happy to instruct our phonetically challenged brothers and sisters in rest of the world, ie. everyone else, in the way god intended letters to be pronounced, as we're the only ones that seem to be getting it right. 😜
You would have learned that you could simply have pronounced "Zoet" as "Soot" instead of that complicated "z-oh-eh-t" with which you're putting the tip of your tongue in mortal danger of being bitten off. 😁
(Knowing my fellow Dutchmen they'd probably throw in some interesting new curses with which to impress your friends and neighbours, entertain impressionable young children and scare off small predators.)
Just to help you out with any future videos... dutch has a number of digraphs (two letters resembling a single sound) that aren't hard to learn but will make your discussion of dutch places a lot easier.
In Zoetermeer, the 'oe' digraph is pronounced like the 'oo' in 'wood'.
In Leiden, the 'ei' digraph is sort of pronounced like the i in 'wide' or 'side'. Same goes for the 'ij' digraph.
The word 'fiets' (bicycle) has the 'ie' digraph pronounced like 'ee' in 'weed'. (But to be clear: the dutch 'ee' digraph is pronounced as the a in 'ate'.)
The 'au' and 'ou' digraphs are pronounced like the 'ow' in 'how'.
Besides that, the 'J' in 'Javalaan' is pronounced like an English y as in 'you' or 'yank'.
3:53 - Not quite correct; the name has nothing to do with the provinces. The 'Randstad' is just a description of the 'border of cities' that describes the crescent-like area made up of Utrecht (province Utrecht), Amsterdam (province North Holland), Rotterdam and The Hague (provice South Holland). It it where the majority of population and thus traffic and 'urban' society tends to concentrate itself.
thanks for the tips, dutch is not an easy language (but it is really cool!)
@@honajtransit grammar is a little hard, with our split composite verbs, secondary sentences with the verb at the end, numbers that are reversed like in German etc, but pronunciation is easier, as soon as you get the sounds right, including those that don't exist in English, there are hardly any exception, unlike English.
Good video and great trip around the system. Did you make it to Berlin and ride the UBahn?
Not yet, but Berlin seems like a really cool city!
@@honajtransit It's fantastic tow other underground railways to try: the one in Glasgow and the old Royal Mail Undergound in London - it's as if USPS had their own subway and it's open to the public to ride
Metroline E could be more busy dual to ether works done to the main NS railway between Den Haag & Rotterdam or dual to a strike from pro-rail
I wish that GO Transit here in Southern Ontario (Toronto and surrounding cities) was an interurban system instead of what we've always had.
RET Line E is weird? Why? You should have seen the former trains on the (almost) same track. Thát was weird. And slow. And dirty. And noisy. And very empty. And had a terrible terminus, Rotterdam Hofplein. For me there's not that much weird about line E. It does what it has to do: connecting two major city centers quickly with a lot of suburbs. The only mistake is the missing station at the airport.
to me, the way that it's weird is that its a rural *metro* line, if it was heavy rail it'd be a lot more normal imo
Oe, like in Zoetermeer is pronounced like oo in good. I like to see what surprises you, whereas I (65 years) have seen it develope. Den Haag you pronounce remarkely well!!
I can't get over the fact that he keeps saing "Zoh-etter-meer" OMG
in my defense, dutch things are hard to pronounce 😭
(at least for americans like me)
To pronounce Zoetermeer properly say 'ooh' and remember that sound incoporate your 'ooh' into zoohtermeer and your there!😂❤
The tram/metro system in and around The Hague turned out so interesting as it makes use of old rail lines where it can. Tram 1 runs from the small city of Delft through The Hague out to Scheveningen beach over more old railway lines, providing a lot more quirks you'd love. The fastest link between The Hague, Delft, Schiedam and Rotterdam is normally the regular train service, but the trams and metro are perfect for anyone who wants to get in and out of the sprawl of suburbs in between the city centres.
Hofplein line used to have an extension to Scheveningen
Have to add that Metro line can sometimes be almost just as quick as train and then metro when you have to be in a specific spot in Rotterdam. As the transfer also takes some time, so sometmes it is only like 5-10 min difference in total.
Great video sir, did you then go on the rotterdam metro?
nope, i did a lil’ tram joyriding then headed back to amsterdam!
That rail map looks complicated.
It looks like NYC's subway system map.
sweat-r-meer it just sounds like shoot-r-meer!!😁
Hey dude were you in Switzerland in August by coincidence?
i was indeed! how did you guess?
videos from switzerland will come out starting in february!
@@honajtransitwe met on the Altstätten Gais rack railway - or at least we saw you filming. Funny that RUclips suggested me your channel now
In Dutch, Utrecht sounds like eeetrekt.
There's another "used to be a train" line. the #1 tramline between The Hague and Delft, along the Vliet. It's the old regional tramline. There were many of those, connecting the countryside to the city.
An The Hague Centraal Station the City liner The Train does not stop Above Hey was stopping on the Train station end the train now to Zoetermeer is also stopping on the Train station
Really enjoy this channel!
Try it with *soot* Sootermeer
The "oe" is pronounced like the oe in _shoes_
so it's pronounced more like zootermeer then?
But they are nice video's❤