As a half-Dutch person, I go to Holland quite often (except for the pandemic) and I think it is the best rail service in the world. I love Japanese railways but they have to learn a lot about constructing timetables and providing services in rural areas. On the other hand, wherever you travel in Holland, you don't have to worry about the timetables as Intercities run every 15 minutes usually. Plus, the trains are very modern and spacious and replaced very often. I can litterally lay down on my sit and still let other people their space. As for the energy point of view I can comment as I am an Electrical Engineer. Of course the power is provided as a mixture of different sources, but the Dutch Railways have a contract with a firm that provides green power. This contractor, sells the generated power to the electric national infrastructure, who will manage all the power sources. So, it is not that the Railways have their direct supply but you know that the energy that they use annually is covered by green sources of energy. A good example could be the water: when you change provider it's not that you change water. You will use the same water but the contract will be different and the bills and service are managed by the provider. So, saying that Dutch Railways rely on green power at 100% is a true statement. I hope this clears your doubts.
as a Dutch person, I much prefer the Japanese railways. You are right about rural areas, but it the Netherlands it is *really* tiring that there are weekend or week-long closures for maintenance every couple of weeks
And not without reason. The only times I've used the train was when I had to travel to the airport in Eindhoven and literally every single time the trains were delayed and/or cancelled. I've just stopped bothering with trains altogether and exclusively use the car nowadays.
@@yeahnope620 I use the train almost everyday. And I know some people who use nothing but cars. And traffic jams are about as common and frustrating as train delays.
Not Just Bikes wanted to make such video for almost a year now, but Railways Explained did it first. Good for you, Railways Explained! Great content, as always.
@@NotJustBikes I think there's space for both, though - this video was definitely more from an operational perspective, whereas your videos tend to be more from an 'end user' perspective. Both are interesting!
RE: "The Netherlands has one of the best railway system and are 91% on time with a 3 minute margin" Every Dutch person: "There is a snowflake on the tracks. No wonder the trains aren't going"
@@debasish0013 Yeah. Many people probably had no clue how bad it really was. I mean, even in my city, snow dunes were reaching to the top of platforms (that's more than 70 centimeters of snow). From images and stories I heard higher up in my province (North Holland) it was even worse there. Zaandam - Uitgeest was crippled for days as there was so much snow on switches that they just couldn't clear it in time anymore.
Don't forget that with the Formula 1 Race in Zandvoort recently they had trains run every 5 minutes, easily beating every metro line in the country in frequency
@@PatheticTV our metro systems are not that frequent, in Amsterdam the lines run on mostly the same tracks, and often that's about once per 6 minutes a train. In Rotterdam it's similar, and the one to the Hague is a joke. But with current ridership they don't really need to be much more frequent than that. 90 seconds seems so much more than necessary here, can't imagine how crowded your metro stations are!
@@khulhucthulhu9952 Rotterdam has 3 lines (ABC) using the same west-east track and 2 lines (DE) using the north-south track. Between Schiedam Centrum and Capelsebrug (basically the entire width of the city) metros run every three minutes.
@@PatheticTV There a many metro systems which have more trains, but there also a lot which are less frequent. Short distance public transport is in lower need, because bikes are usually faster.
amsterdam doesnt know that frequence* in Rotterdam we have an metro 3 minutes 20 seconds on the ABC line, and in rush hours even more frequently. Another example that Rotterdam is superior to amsterdam
17:15 Electricity doesn't care how it is generated. The grid just distributes it. So you can buy power from a company that generates only electricity from wind (or buys certificates). That company then gets paid for the power they generate. So their claim is probably accurate.
Exactly. There is some truth that the entire grid is just consuming the same energy mix, but crucially, it's not irrelevant to say that the energy needs of the trains (the train energy demand) are balanced by a renewable energy contract (the contracted energy supply). The grid is managed in such a way that the supply needs to meet the demand at all times, and the accounting of energy is made on a "balance" system. While contracting renewable energy does not shift the energy mix of the grid immediately, it does add pressure for changing it in practice: as more and more electricity users choose to contract renewable energy only, the more pressure there is to increase renewable generation in the mix, because they can only sell as much renewable energy as they generate.
@@MrRicmeme But the trains will NEVER be able to ride on renuwable electricity itself.There just isnt enough of it,even if you place windmils at every corner of the land! Is a fairytale of the left to think that it is possible..
@@computeraddic675 That is strangely put. Even now already, there is enough wind power to power all trains, which is paid for by NS. The only inaccuracy is that, before reaching the railway system, it passes through the general grid, where its mixed with other types of energy - but there is more than enough wind energy generated in the Netherlands to power the train system.
Agreed, wouldn't make sense to connect wind directly to the train rails anyway, because you'd be wasting almost all of the generation potential overnight!
@@quanvanderknokke6219 "strangely put" is a great way to say "pointlessly political and factualy incorrect", i might copy your approach going forward :P
The most importiant thing is to remember that the Dutch railway system wasn't just given to the Netherlands by some sort of benevolant ruling class who wanted the best for it's underlings. Only trough persistant pressure and complaining from the public, and a well-unionised workforce are the railways kept in the little-above-average state that they are in. A lot of struggle went into resisting the neoliberal tendencies that would have further damaged the system like it did in the UK. And a lot more struggle is needed to make it a mode of transportation that is truely governed by and for the people, in stead of the profit-incentives of some "free"-market fundamentalists at the top.
yes these new Creditcard form wich you need to put money on and check in and out with is terrible.. The old system was much better and also much cheaper. the old system was to buy a ticket and let a controller in the train put a stamp on it. the same as with the buses, the chauffeur would put a stamp on it
The chipcards are absolutely rubbish. Pricing has become way less transparent, and the mark-up has been absolutely disgusting. Aside of that, Translink BV stole about a 1000 euro from me back in the day when they implemented the system. Failure after failure, and instead of providing traveling students a temporary alternative, I was forced to buy a train ticket every day. Not a monthly subscription, nope, day tickets, because they wouldn't pay for a monthly subscription for some reason. Then they frauded me and a bunch of other students by making the receipts we (had to) deliver to them "just disappear" Politicians, media and society just ignored it after it was initially reported and carried on like nothing happened. (It's a bit of a Dutch thing to cover horrible financial injustice up and act like it doesn't happen) Absolutely a bunch of frauding asshole corporate cunts. Everything that has been privatised turned into expensive crap that barely functions (looking at you too dutch mail and parcel services, phone and data) And as said, it is an ongoing battle to keep these companies from making it much worse (Like the UK, holy shit do I hate using public transport there)
Mooi gesproken, maar dan enkel in het kader van de NS. Als dit nu ook voor bv. de politiek geld hiero. Die doen toch meestal wat ze zelf willen en dik betaald ook nog.
There is a significant error in the history section; the two main companies prior to the combination of 1917 and merger of 1939 were not SS and NCS but SS and HSM - and the HSM was basically the renamed HIJSM mentioned in the oldest history part. NCS and NBDS were the two minor mainline railways, and they were absorbed by SS before the merger. The other companies were either subsidiaries of the big two or local railways, or both.
Thanks for the comment. When you look the video you will see that we mention The Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij but we use wrong abbreviation - NCS. We should use HSM as you stated. So thank you for this note.
That 1 intercity train per 10 minutes experiment has in fact been expanded to 3 more lines! Besides Amsterdam-Utrecht-Eindhoven it will feature on Nijmegen-Utrecht-Amsterdam, Rotterdam-the Hague-Leiden-Amsterdam and the Dordrecht-Rotterdam sprinter
Note that those lines are still in their infancy, at the moment the Rotterdam-the Hague-Leiden-Amsterdam line only has one intercity per 10 minutes on Wednesdays. I do see it being implemented more often soon though. Other trains don't really seem to lose efficiency when 10-minute lines are active. Also, students receive a free subscription on the rail network as part of their study credit. If a diploma is granted within ten years, this doesn't have to be paid back. This has proven to be very attractive to students, as owning a car or motorbike is no longer necessary to travel from one corner of the country to the other. And given the punctuation of the train network one can quite reliably expect to switch trains without any problems. There are multiple students who live with their parents for a while and travel to their lectures by train every day, although that does depend on how well they are connected to the train network.
As a train driver who drives freight both in Belgium and the Netherlands, I can say the difference between is the two countries is day and night. Let’s just say it’s frustrating when you cross the boarder back onto the useless Belgian network run by Infrabel (we call Infrabrol which translates into English loosely as Infrarubbish)
Belgian universities produce mainly bureaucrats for the EU institutions, gender activists and political correctness. Dutch universities produce engineers, project managers, economists... These are real life implications 😁😁😁
@@jirislavicek9954 In the Netherlands universities also have large concentrations of gender activists and relatively more political correctness than the rest of the Netherlands (but pc tends to be less in the Netherlands than in other countries), but the most left wing university of them all, the one in Wageningen, is also the worlds leading university in agricultural technology and research and responsible for the Netherlands' consistant top5 ranking of the worlds largest food exporters. The leftist universities in the Netherlands don't just preach, they actually get things done.
I came to the Netherlands in 2019. Coming from Switzerland, I really didn't notice that much difference between the systems characteristics. That was absolutely fantastic compared to the DB I ride more frequently compared to the Dutch Railways.
DB ? Deutsche Bahn is German .. But otherwise, they say Swiss rail is on of the best, so.. (Apart from the fact that since Covid most people have used rail less, of course..)
@@Gotterfunken33 Dutch public transport is terrible living in the south of that country, I live in Maastricht since 2015, though I love it there, public transport is at least in my region insufficient and structurally underfunded.
You touched on it in the end but i would like to add my personal experience with the high frequency on the dutch railway network. As someone who mostly travels between Rotterdam/Utrecht/Amsterdam, i rarely check the schedule on my routes unless deep in the evening catching the nighttrains. My average waiting times rarely exceed 15 minutes and long layovers are minimal. You know a railway network is great when people complain about delays of 5 minutes or less
Yeah, it's reassuring to know that if you miss your train, there'll be another one leaving in 15 minutes' time (if it's an Intercity train and you're at one of the larger stations like Utrecht, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Arnhem, and a couple more. If you're taking the train at a 'rural' station in The Netherlands, with only 'stopping trains' (NS calls them Sprinters), you'll have to wait half an hour for the next train. While in Canada, if you miss the last morning train, better find something to do because the next train will be arriving and leaving in the late afternoon.
Well what a great system. Works well and more importantly they realize getting people to the train station efficiently is just as important as the trains themselves. That's a lot of bicycle parking by the way.
@@Notthecobracommander I agree. It helps though that the country is very flat relative to other countries. You can wear a suit and ride a bicycle without worrying about sweating but in another country... encounter a hill and that's RIP suit.
@@Konkacha True that. It is the land of lower countries after all😄. Only 50% of the country is 1meter or more above sea level. I thought Texas was flat.
Yeah, I see pictures of the High-speed railway stations in Hejaz for Hajj but they look like they're out on the highway in the desert, needing taxis or buses.
@@jianmingliu2767 That can only be true if almost the whole or a part of the network comes to a standstill. Because every 10 minutes at most and every hour at least a train is coming to every station. So 90 minutes delay of one train is rare, almost impossible.
@@Pvemaster2 That was 2013. There are maybe some who remember the steam locomotives pulling one train a day, but those are other times. We’re talking about current times, at least I do.
@@RealConstructor bruh 2013 isn't even 10 years ago. What are you, 15 years old? Likening 8 years ago to the age of steam trains is trash reasoning at best
Someone tried to put money on their card but couldn't figure it out so they asked me, I asked several other people, non of us could figure it out. The best part is that we all work there.
With all due respect, just how ground-breaking is this one chip card really for a small-sized country? I am from Hong Kong, where such a system was introduced as early as 1997. I mean, for me, it is the way to be, and really more place should be doing this. But sadly not.
@@chiuwong4057 yeah it is more easy for one City. I am in Berlin and I have one card for all Public Transport here but it is useless in other cities in Germany. In NL you use the same Card for the Metro in Amsterdam, the intercity Train, Tram in Rotterdam aswell for the last Bus in the last village somewhere else. Everybody in the country accepts it, the tarrifs and payments are easy to undrestand.
The standard OV-chipkaart payment is certainly helpful, but "the future of today" would be contactless payment with any bank card, credit card or a phone. Think London. Also is already in use in many other European cities, or is just coming.
In the case of the power grid, all the electricity is collected in a lake, so to speak, and then distributed to everyone. If you order solar power, a larger amount of solar power is put into the lake. You, as the end user, do not necessarily receive 100% solar power from your socket, but you increase the share of solar power for everyone. So it is actually not worse if the electricity does not go directly to the train line but into the public grid. Hope I could help.
In 2019 Dutch Rail Traffic Controllers visited Switzerland to gain experience with their systems. Purposely no directors were on that trip so that the main focus would be on operational personnel working on the Swiss simulators for a couple of days, instead of talking about powerpoints in boardrooms. Thanks to the hospitality of the Swiss colleagues, the Dutch operators gained valuable in depth experience the Dutch use for their digital rail traffic control plans.
Great video. Haven't lived in The Netherlands since 1995 and rarely take the train when I visit, so it's great to see what happened since I left. My parents never owned a car and had public transit cards instead, so I grew up riding trains, trams and buses instead of cars. Thanks for making this video!
As a train enthusiast and transport researcher from the Netherlands, I mostly agree. This is something that's been worked towards for the last 15 or so years. Punctuality was abysmal around the early 00s, below 80%. Nowadays, okay, part of it is due to lengthening the train schedules between cities somewhat in some places such that trains can effectively make up some time to get back on schedule, but a lot of it is also due to targeted investment to reduce the number of high-risk points and improve incident management to take care of them quickly (you touched on this when talking about subcontractor maintenance areas). Utrecht Centraal had its track layout renovated completely, dramatically reducing the number of switches and points where train lines cross. If I had to still mention areas for improvement though, it's probably about the quality of and travel times on long-distance trains. Often, long distance trains just have one operational toilet, or are severely overcrowded in student rush hours- none of them have an onboard restaurant, and onboard catering is also barely a thing - really not an experience befitting of an 'intercity' product, although of course they are more like interregio services when compared to products in other european countries. It does limit the usage of the mode of transport that trains are for middle-to-high income travellers, both for business and recreational usage. Tickets are fairly expensive relative to other European countries that have much better long-distance products in terms of service quality. As far as travel times go, there is one single high speed line that the Thalys, Eurostar, and trains limited to 160km/h (Intercity Direct) use, passing by Amsterdam, Amsterdam Airport, Rotterdam and Breda. Between Utrecht and Amsterdam, trains can go up to 200 km/h if I recall correctly. But other than that, most of the country (and train types) are limited to 120 or 140 km/h. That can definitely be faster and would make a huge difference for people living in the country's periphery (Groningen, Twente, Arnhem/Nijmegen, Eindhoven area, Maastricht) or for international passenger traffic to eastern Belgium and Germany. If these speeds were increased somewhat, the train would suddenly become a viable alternative to cars for a lot more people. I guess this is the next area for targeted investment. There have been talks of high speed lines to the north and east of the country for decades, and now that the EU seems to be focused on it and the climate change induced transport revolution is around the corner, it's time to invest in them. So I will say that when I saw the title ''how all railways should look', i definitely didn't agree with it- there's so much to improve. It works awesome as a de facto metro network, but for mid- to long distances the quality needs to be much improved to become a serious alternative to car travel and to truly offer economic benefits to society.
Thanks for this comprehensive comment. There is always room for improvement. But our title can be read like this - every country should emulate the Netherlands and the railway should be improved every year, even in the context of launching initiatives such as NS taxi, providing flexible door-to-door service, the introduction of a train service for every 10-15 minutes etc. Many countries do not have that..
@@peeryoutube 5 hours, actually, and imagine being hungry and thirsty with no time to leave the train. a railcatering service is sorely missed in the NS intercity trains!
@@GovernmentOfLocany Indeed, it would actually save a lot of time. You're wasting 15 to 20 minutes on the train station to get some snacks, if it was available on the train you could take 1 or 2 trains earlier.
@@RailwaysExplained NS taxi is a horrible service. Called ones. Never arrived. I had to call the central only to hear that the driver cancelled my appointment (why did I need to call them?) Looking at the feedback of people. I wasn't by far, the only one.
@@jirislavicek9954 In Belgium, als Luik/Liège is special. In NL, Rotterdam, Breda, Arnhem, Utrecht. But also smaller stations like Driebergen-Zeist. Point being: the 100m around every station has a high value which attracts investments.
9:35 the Kampen - Zwolle and Zwolle - Almelo railway lines, coloured non-electrified on this map, has actually been electrified a few years ago. The non-electrified Roermond - Venlo - Nijmegen line is to be electrified within the next three years. Meanwhile, the Rotterdam - Hook of Holland line is technically no longer a railway line as it has been integrated in the Rotterdam Metro network.
Indeed, the Hoek van Holland-Rotterdam line is now part of the Metro/Light Rail running from one end of the city to the other, and then through 4 nearby cities, Also a very interesting Rail Network of a different kind of train that Rotterdam and Den Hague has been put together along with the various cities and towns in between
@@Voron_Aggrav But that used to be a former railnetwork as well. Randstadrail is almost only a refurbishment (a very costly one, I might add, at 2,2 billion Euro or so) of a former rail network to a kind-of metrosystem. Most notable feature involved the closure of the 'Krakeling', the 'Zoetermeer Stadslijn' (Pretzel, the Zoetermeer Cityline). It was called this way as it rather closely resembled a pretzel on the network map. It has had a few extensions since it's (troublesome) startup in 2006.
@@weeardguy you'd need my dad and not me for those kinds of details, I've been born in Vlaardingen but long since left Holland for one of the provinces on the German border, the Hoek van Holland line I'm aware of as I still use it for family once in a while, and I've used the Sweetlake city one for appointments few years back
Be gald you are a german. its cheap to travel in germany. i was in berlin couple of weeks back. holy crap that city is cheap. 40 euros for a metro ticket could travel 6 days with it. and nobody who controls you what so ever. and dont get me started on how cheap everything is. my home village in the netherlands is more expensive then anything i have seen in berlin.
DB rail system is way larger and more complex. But mentality of the Germans is diffrent more it can't be done becouse of the rules. the Dutch is more it can be done if we almost comply to all of the rules.
Great video, with interesting facts I didn't know. However, I triggered on the map shown at 11:14 What you've got there are the management areas of the Dutch Waterboards. The correct image you're looking for can be found in the 'Beheerplan 2019' of the 'Tweede kamer', page 18.
Would really like to see a video about South Korea's railways next; 6th most passenger-kilometers in the world in a small country of just over 50 million people!
One member of the RE team was in South Korea in 2019 for a one-month training on the construction and implementation of railway infrastructure projects. So we are essentially personally familiar about the performance of these railways. And it is definitely on our to-do list
South Korea has a decent railway comparing with American ones, but regionally speaking neither the density nor the electrification rate doesn't even reach North Korean ones, although North Korea's extensive electrified railway frequently comes without electricity.
@@GyacoYu I have to imagine that in addition to often lacking electricity, a lot of at least secondary lines--maybe even primary ones--are in very poor condition, which will limit speed and capacity, to say nothing of internal travel restrictions in North Korea. South Korea is also building a lot of new rail lines (both regular and high-speed), and believe it or not, already has the densest high-speed rail network in the world..
@Zsombor 0.3 Hungary is actually only a little bit smaller than South Korea: 93,000km2 vs 100,000km2. One fifth the population density, but not actually a much smaller country.
In the USA when we're faced with challenges like traffic safety or flooding we get "thoughts and prayers". It's amazing to see actual plans to solve problems.
Great video! Just one thing about the freight operators, ERS Railways, HGK, Rail4Chem & Veolia Cargo do not operate (anymore) in the Netherlands. Instead some large freight operators today are RTB Cargo, LTE, SBB Cargo, RFO, Lineas, Captrain, RRF & BLS.
@@RailwaysExplained Don't worry: the freight-operator world is a fast-changing world. Some operators are only active for a few months as either their former competitor had to give up because of x reason, went bankrupt or just decided to 'explore new opportunities' where the current transport just doesn't fit in. Could very well be things have changed again by now.
Great story ! I can speak from experience using the NS and Arriva trains. Very punctual- clean - friendly service- always ready to answer your questions. 😄
'Best railway' : - 1 cm of snow: all trains cancelled - having to switch trains in 5 mins: the train your in is always late, the one you have to catch leaves early, you miss your train - delayed/cancelled trains because of branches on the rails lmao - police has to come, because someone locked themselves in the toilet without a ticket: 40 min delay -prices: UNAFFORDABLE
And still we say "NS sucks", but really it's great that all university or HBO students get free public transport. Yea sometimes there are issues but on almost all days operations are smooth. Only thing that sucks is that almost all trains have free WiFi and charging ports, but of course my route still has old carriages...
giving students free access has nothing to do with NS, it's the ministry of education's doing. NS still sucks. Chronic delays, chronically overcrowded during rush hour, poor customer service, frequent equipment problems. And yes, part of that is ProRail's failure, but ProRail is effectively NS. Still remember being dumped on the side of the track in the late 1990s because the driver hadn't been told the next station was closed for network maintenance. 500 people were told that "NS will send busses". That was the 3rd train dumping its load in the middle of nowhere on a railroad crossing outside of any town... 1500 people waiting, half an hour later 1 (yes, one) bus appears. In the end the army (this being not too far from an army base) sent trucks instead after some soldiers who'd been on their way to work called in to their bases and arranged things.
@@sultankamysbayev1937 They are though, at least my former Indonesian best friend who studied at a university (and a lot of other people at that student housing kinda park/complex).
@@sultankamysbayev1937 It's part of the package of subsidised grants and loans all Dutch students get from the government so yes, it'd only be for them (yes, more loans than grants nowadays, when I was a student it was all grants and full access to all public transport, but that was 25 years ago).
Excellent video, but the freight train operators DB Schenker has been renamed DB Cargo and the HGK is no longer a freight train operator since 2012! The german HGK has joined its freight train operations with Neuss Düsseldorfer Häfen and merged that operation in the new company Rhein Cargo, that operate the traffic.
I appreciate this video! The Dutch seem to have one of the most people orientated transport systems in the world, with their focus on railways and on bikes. The channel BicycleDutch has been making videos for years on cycling in the Netherlands
@@Sacto1654 yes, although there still needs to be the political will to allocate space for protected cycling infrastructure. More so, the emergence of E-bikes are helping with tackling the challenges of hills
That's a non-argument. There are a lot of flat river deltas out there in the world that still have very bad infrastructure. But being hilly shouldn't be a reason for bad bike infrastructure, because the Dutch know how to build bike infrastructure in Arnhem and Maastricht too. Those places are pretty hilly.
Great video! You really captured the essence of the Dutch railway system. The presence of such a great railway system also has effects on how we are developing our cities further. Areas around railway stations are currently prime suspects for high density developments focusing on active modes of transportation instead of cars. This helps solve the housing crisis, while not increasing the amount of highways and other car infrastructure normally associated with such high density developments.
fun fact staatsspoorwegen(ss) also operated its trains on the islands of Java and Sumatra at that time and made it the largest railway company in the Duct East Indische all railway infrastructure such as bridges, viaducts, tunnels, depots and stations are still in use and their reliability is extraordinary. Many abandoned bridges and stations are still standing and not destroyed by plants and earthquakes.
The Dutch railway system is great, unless a single leaf falls on the track or there is 1mm of snowfall because that brings the whole network to a halt for some reason.
NS has a contract with various wind farms to produce enough energy to power its rail system - "enough" in this case is about 1.2 TWh per year. Since the rail system is connected to the grid as you mentioned correctly, it is true that at any given point in time the energy that the trains use might come from any source. Nevertheless, adding this 1.2 TWh to the national grid system annually means that those 1.2 TWh need not be produced by some other carbon-intensive source. Whether those 1.2 TWh are directly consumed by a house, a factory, or the rail system is irrelevant. At the end of the day, or better say the year, all the energy needed to run trains is added to the system through wind farms.
Liberazation of Dutch railways means... those trajects least profitable are up for takes... all other profitable trajects remain in possession of Nederlandse Spoorwegen
Great video, 2 things I noticed on the first watch: - the map of the electrified and non-electrified routes was outdated for at least a couple of years. - while there is currently an active 10 minute train service between Eindhoven and Amsterdam. There will be 2/3 more from December on, could have been nice to mention! Other than that, great video ✌️
I think a major factor in the customer satisfaction is that in the last couple of years nearly every major station, even in medium or small sized cities, underwent upgrades or renewal. 'Dilapitated' stations simply don't exist unless you cross the border into Belgium or Germany where it immediately feels like you went back in time 25 years.
I'd rather be in a rat infested pit than the clean stations with trains that sometimes don;t show up for an hour. There is no way this many people are satisfied with the NS here. It is too unreliable, it doesn't matter that 95% of the trains run on time. many times per year the whole system breaks down and you end up where you need to go an hour late. No sane person shows up an hour early 95% of the year to deal with that eventuality
@@kapytanhook unreliable and also expensive as fuck. A little bit of snow? There goes 80% of the scheduled trains. Not to speak of all the times my train for some reason couldn't continue on and I had to continue my journey by bus provided by the NS. Also, don't take the train to your flight unless you're willing to shell out hundreds for a taxi in the event of a delay.
@@therealdutchidiot good thing I'm Dutch then, no? These are common Dutch facts. I recommend asking a Dutch person about NS. You'll get the same rant. You might want to read @kaptyanhook their comment carefully aswell.
@@henkoosterink8744 no, in the mixed traffic, the way high speed rail got accessible to everyone, also in the countryside and the big investment plan coming up now.
@@oerrukhsfgkh1612 Yeah, the big investment plan. I travel to Germany regularly, and i have a lot of delays. In september they left me for 4 hours in the middle of nowhere. No information no busses, and hundreds of angry people trying to catch their flight.
Regarding the green energy. In Europe, and maybe even beyond, green electricity is certified. For every 1MWh of green power produced, the production company gets a certificate. And when you sell that power, you sell the certificate with it. How it works exactly, I do not know. But the goal is that anyone buying "green" electricity can be certain of the origin of that power. In case of the railways, they buy power from the Eneco windfarm and they end up with the certificates from that windfarm in an amount equal to the power they consumed. The fact that there is a difference between when the power is generated and when it is consumed is less important for the fact that the railway companies can claim that 100% of the consumed power is green and comes from those windparks. They basically use the grid as a form of storage, which is of course incorrect.
In Norway all energy is green. Because they have a ton of hydropower. So people living there don’t think about green power. The certificates sold in the Netherlands come from there. So on paper we have green coal power and the Norwegians have grey hydropower. In the end profit from stupidity.
@@1barnet1 And yet, that is incorrect. While it is true that Norway only generates green power and generates more power than it needs, it sells a lot of that green power meaning that it has to 'import' grey power again because the green one is sold on to other countries.
@@Hans-gb4mv Which comes down to the same thing. Norwegians use grey power on paper and we use "norwegian" power which is produced in the local coal plant.
@@1barnet1 So what. As long as the total amount of green power produced is on the rise, that is what ultimately matters. If we can use capitalism to achieve that, why not do that? We need every trick in the book to get carbon neutral (or negative) before the permanent damage we're doing to the climate gets too bad.
@@rikwisselink-bijker This is not helping to get carbon neutral. This is greenwashing fossil energy. Same with biomass. Let's subsidize cutting forests on the other side of the atlantic to ship it here to burn. We need more solar wind and nuclear. And this is cutting down our ability to do so.
Absolutely spot on with this video! And to clear it up, NS is just getting better and better as new trains are to be presented end of the year or early next year (ICNG) and hopeful for new orders for a new double decker to replace the DDZ which is surprisingly still grounded.
I'd have loved to see a bit on the rolling stock used in the Netherlands. Most of the Sprinters used by NS and other operators are just run-of-the-mill trains that are used across Europe, but I genuinely think the VIRM is the best model of intercity train anywhere, and of course a fair few Koplopers are still in operation, and they are fascinating.
You should take a closer look at the highspeed rail in the Netherlands. That flopped big time because the cities and governments insited on making them stop at Amsterdam - Schiphol - Rotterdam and The Hague all with very short distance between those stations so the trains could never reach their top speed and were practically useless eventhough they have their own seperate lines built. So there are trains for wich you have to pay commision that are a bit faster with a train consiting of two semi-old German locomotives with old carriages. The liberalisation meant that the prices doubled. Going by train or by car are financially almost even, so people opt to go by car more often leading to congestion on the road networks.
As a Dutch-German living in Germany (close to the border), I love taking the train to the Netherlands, especially when inside the Netherlands. It's just so much more reliable and relaxing than DB imo.
As a dutchman my only real gripe with the railway system is that it takes twice as long to get somewhere and it's over twice as expensive compared to going by car, alone. Add in passengers and the price problem multiplies. Even in rush hour, cars are still the faster option.
A car will be faster, most of the time. People who have to commute can get a discount or compensation from their employer that makes the extra travel time worthwile and cheaper than going by car, especially after taxes and maintenance. It's the incidental leisure trips that are relatively expensive.
Thanks for this video, very nice work and interesting perspectives. It taught me some new things too. Here and there, a critical note might have been inserted, some examples of which are: - Syntus indeed started out to create synergy between train and bus, but this was found to be difficult to assure, especially after getting concessions in other parts of the country. - The goods line from Rotterdam to Germany (Betuwelijn) was a failure for quite some time, starting with major construction delays, followed by a limited use because the line was not ready on the German side. - Yes, the high speed line to Antwerp went into operation in 2009, but eleven years later, it still has not come fruition, because the Fyra trains that were supposed to run on it were extremely unreliable and got dumped. Only a few high-speed trains (Thalys, Eurostar) can use the line with higher speeds (but still well below design speed). - The KPI of punctuality did not improve without a hitch. The Dutch railways received heavy criticism for many years, and of course making the necessary changes (in equipment, infrastructure, time tables, ...) has been a huge effort that took many years to accomplish. It's impressive what they did there.
I do think the privatization of the Dutch railways was a bad move. It wasn't quite as disasterous as it was in Britain cause the transition was better handled but I still think it was a net negative. Trains should be government institutions cause that's what they are in effect. They are there to serve the people and enable the economy and they aren't really there as profitable economies in their own right. Trains also function best as part of an overall national transportation network and operating them in isolation as companies is less efficient. It doesn't matter how good the trains themselves are if the bus services connected to them are not up to snuff. It hasn't been that bad yet but it could far more easily get bad.
When visiting the Netherlands, I was mostly impressed by the high frequency on all lines. It's amazing that between almost every two major cities there's a train every 15 minutes. And on some lines there's an Intercity train every 15 minutes in addition to a Sprinter train every 15 minutes.
amazing isn't it ... my small suburban station 25 km from Amsterdam has 6 departures an hour ... in each direction... 3 stops down the track a small city of 85,000 has a station with 10 departures an hour in each direction, including international trains to Berlin every 2 hours. It's 11pm here and there are a dozen departures in the next hour going various places...
Foreigners: Wow, Dutch railway is something else! Dutchies: *eternally grumbling about the NS while stuffing our faces with kaasbroodjes from the kiosk*
Yes please. Send a commission to the Czech Republic to implement some serious changes here! We have the world's second most dense railway network but many local lines didn't see much improvements since they were built during the times of Austro-Hungarian empire. Main lines work well but there are still big reserves in speed, connectivity, punctuationality and rolling stock replacement. Situation is improving but not fast enough.
I enjoy watching rail cams at Twello and Helmond, what a contrast Netherlands rail is to the US! So much passenger rail and even the freight trains are clean and tidy. Plus it's a relaxing look into town life.
its not only better to look at but its also alot nicer. I live in Mierlo-Hout in Helmond and pass railcrossing every day when cycling to school or going to the local grocerystore and its a very nice place to be.
I wish we had a Dutch style rail system in Australia, although the one thing you don't need in the Netherlands is overnight trains. To go by train from my city to two-thirds of the way up the coast is a 24 hour trip, and to get to the other side of the country is a 70-75 hour trip. Add to that the expense. It's far cheaper to drive or fly than go by train which is mainly geared for tourists. Our trains that service regional towns are pretty slow and antiquated.
The most fun thing is that sometimes you can see those old locomotives ride to. As in last weekend (beginning of october) there was an even where the trains ride to Gouda and took you to Rotterdam (Where it's storage hall is stationed). Seriously fun trip to experience and not expensive for 7 50 per person. Sometimes also other trains visit to.
As a dutch person myself. I wish we had a lot more high-speed rail. The connection in the Randstad is close to great, but everything east of Utrecht and below Den Haag? It's just not up there. Of course, there are fewer people living there, but it's silly that I have to jump 3 trains to go from Amsterdam to say Apeldoorn, and it taking almost twice as long as a car ride.
@@Leonium797 Could be that there were some typical dutch "issues" that day, but I had to go from Haarlem to Amsterdam, from Amsterdam to Utrecht and then from Utrecht to Apeldoorn. It was on a Sunday by the way. Sundays always suck. And to edit this one: A two-way trip? 45 goddamn euro's, I mean, that's silly when compared to gas prices. A car ride from and back is what? 15 euro's max.
Dutch pronunciation is not really that difficult - on my first trip there, I learned the most important items were: G and CH are both a throaty H (like loch in Scottish); OE = English OO (as in fool); OO = long O (as in English go); IJ = I (as in English high); UI is the most difficult for English speakers, sort of starts like OW but ends I (so you can see that Zuid is just South spelled differently ... or vice-versa). I'm interested that in the 1990s the network was divided into 'profitable' and 'unprofitable' lines; back in the 1960s Beeching did the same with the UK rail network, and has been criticised ever since. After all, an 'unprofitable' line can still be of benefit to the system as a whole, so that if you close it, general profitability does not get better, and may even worsen. And profitabily of a line may improve if it is run more competently, or so as to make better connections. British Railways was suspected of running services at unhelpful times, so as to enable it to make a case for closures. It doesn't look, from your map, as if there have been many closures of rail routes in the Netherlands
@@ricktownend9144It’s always hard to convey the sound of vowels that are pronounced differently in another language (or even non-existing!) and you did a very decent job for most of them. Let me see if I can finetune the last two you mentioned though: pronouncing IJ as the I in ‘high’ sounds a bit like a foreigner trying to pronounce IJ (if I may say so) Like G/CH, there is also another notation for the sound IJ: the other one is EI. And that last one (ei) is a closer approximation of how to pronounce it: start with the ‘e’ from ‘egg’ and end with the ‘ee’ from ‘knee’. Ironically, even among native Dutch speakers, there is a shift going on towards the way you described it, so you will have the last laugh eventually ;) UI is a whole different beast, not only hardest to pronounce for non-native speakers, but also hardest to explain… not if you were a Scot though, I noticed that they pronounce ‘out’ and ‘down’ almost exactly the way we pronounce ‘uit’ and ‘duin’, very fascinating! The difficult part of explaining the sound of UI, is that it requires another sound that is difficult for English speakers: UU. Think of the ‘e’ in ‘brew’, without narrowing your lips towards the end of the sound. That’s our UU. Now start with the ‘e’ from ‘egg’ and transform it into our UU. Repeat a number of times, with ever decreasing emphasis on the first ‘e’. That should do the trick (I hope) Regarding non-profitable lines: not many have been closed, but NS stopped exploiting them. Other companies took over, with varying results. Near Rotterdam, two lines were turned into light rail and connected to the city metro network. The first one, to The Hague and in use since 2006, has seen passenger numbers quintuple, the other one (to Hoek van Holland) opened near the end of 2019, and then covid happened… so it still has to prove its worth, but the first months were promising nonetheless. The line was recently extended to the beach, that should also be beneficial for passenger numbers if the weather allows for it.
Since everything is basically connected to the grid, it doesn't really matter. when they say they use 100% wind-energy it means that they buy 100% windenergy, but it doesn't matter where it is produced. Just that the amount of electricity they use is produced somewhere by wind exclusively for them.
Nothing was more delightful than seeing a koplopper and a belgian diesel class 62 side by side at Roosendaal in the 80s: the two most butch trains ever.
Something that should be mentioned is that all this comes at a price. While our railway system is great, it’s also very expensive. A single ticket from Amsterdam to Rotterdam in peak hours will cost you about €19, assuming you want to get back too that’s another €19. It is too expensive for many working class people to replace their car.
i will put it simple as a Dutch person myself: usually when we start complaining about basically anything, there is at least a small margin to improve upon whatever we complain about. this is due to us not only seeking but also desire perfection above all. if perfection is not met, one can expect a complaint. this doesn't mean despite our harsh complaints, we don't appreciate what our railways(example) mean to us. because lets also be real: where would we be without it?
Regarding the situation of wind power: they ensure the same amount of power that they consume is generated by wind power. Theres no guarantee that they actually run on 100% wind power but they make sure in cooperation with ENECO that theres as much production as the railways consume at all times.
It's fun to recognize the city names on the old maps with different spelling (like Leyden is nowadays Leiden). At 2:18 my tiny village where I was born is on there! Warmond! It no longer has a train station, it was destroyed in 1964 when it was 100 years old. Although a new station is build nearby which happened when I still lived there. It's on the border of Warmond and Sassenheim but they named it Station Sassenheim.
I subscribed bc I think it’s interesting to hear these explanations of backstories. I would really love if you could do Germany next, I would LOVE to hear your opinion on it as I had pretty bad experiences lately but I think the system has a lot of potential and I would love from you to hear what and how they could improve. I’ve lived in Germany, NL and France and out of the three so far I preferred the French for punctuality and speed and the German one of the inner design of their trains. For NL I only used the train a few times to travel bc I was pretty restricted due to Covid and bc I was living in the city I biked everywhere. What I loooove in NL is how easy and customer/user friendly anything is within the country. The fact that I can go from Rotterdam let’s say Groningen and get off the train and step on the first bus I see, not having to think about figuring out the ticket system of a new city is suuuuch a luxury. When in Paris for example, I usually had to first wait in line 15min to draw a ticket and then figure out from where to where it’s valid etc. Being able to use the same Transport Card everywhere I go is something I definitely don’t wanna ever miss again in my life! The few times I’ve driven with NS where really pleasant tho, no delays, flexible and frequent connections, no cancellations. I only which the system was a bit faster… Amsterdam-Groningen for example taking 2:20h while being a smaller distance than Paris-Lille which takes only 1h is a crazy difference. Of course I realise this has to do with the intermediate stops but it would be nice if there was one small direct HS train going in the morning and one at night bc this way I always see myself leaving earlier than I would like to. And on another note I would really like the tickets to be cheaper (a flaw that all three systems have) one weekend in Rotterdam costing me 60€ for transportation is just insane. I wish they had more options reduction for young people (not just for Dutch students) On the other hand all those speedy connections and reductions in fares don’t give you anything if the punctuality sucks, which is what is the case with the DB one of the most fragile systems ever… I took the DB 5 times in the past half a year 5/5 had 5.5h+ delays due to minor storms or strikes.. if it wasn’t the only viable option for medium distances I wouldn’t take it anymore. This is why I would really like an analysis of it done by you :) thanks
Having a personal interest in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where, over this past few years, I have learned about the fact that, in both cases, the rail network is a mix of 25 kv AC and 3 kv DC I think it is a very interesting subject how those two systems compare, also being aware that 25 kv AC is gradually supplanting 3 kv DC in both countries. If you say that the overwhelmingly 1.5 kv DC-operated Dutch system is so good it should be a suitable 'laboratory' to see if DC has a long-term future after all.
25 kV AC is becoming the norm in Europe and is slowly replacing other electrification systems. It has the most advantages and the least disadvantages. The 3 kV DC is originally an Italian standard. DC was historically easier to work with. But it is less suitable for transferring high power modern locomotives or high speed trains require, has the greatest losses and usually requires parallel larger diameter cable that feeds the overhead line for that reason. Neighbouring Poland uses this system. So does the north part of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Germans (+ Austria + Scandinavia) have their own 15 kV AC 16.7 Hz (1000 rpm) system. It is a system developped in 1920s when transforming 50 Hz was a technical serious technical problem. Most other countries adopted 25 kV 50 Hz later when advancements in science allowed to use it's potential. This is the system what the southern part of the Czech Republic and Slovakia uses (and more and more European countries) The 1.5 kV DC system that Netherland uses is quite outdated system and I believe will be replaced eventually. There is a historic line in the Czech Republic between Tábor and Bechyně opened in 1906 that uses this 1.5 kV DC. This system will be preserved for it's historical value. Czech and Slovak railways use single-system locomotives that can run only on 3 kV or 25 kV or dual locomotives that can run on both. Some modern locomotives could be bought in versions that can use all 4 major systems (1.5 kV DC, 3 kV DC, 15 kV AC, 25 kV AC).
Being from the US, I am so impressed by how much emphasis The Netherlands places on transportation, and they are very organized about it as well. I wish we had a system like that here, but we only have it in big cities, and for long distances that from my own experience are slow, grueling rides. Most of Europe is light years ahead of US when it comes to public transportation.
Regarding punctuality: The thing about the Netherlands is that the schedule changes very often for maintenance or other reasons. So being "on time" becomes quite relative. It might be on time based on the recently updated schedule, but it is not at all according to the annual schedule. It is still not very bad, but this fact does really affect the reliability of the network I think.
The electricity they use gets put into the grid by these wind farms. So yes, they receive the normal mix of the grid, but their usage in kWh is put into the grid as wind.
Every time I watch one of these videos, it really makes me unbelievably jealous. I wish there was some semblance of public transit and especially trains in Houston. Which coming from me, a person that loves cars and loves driving is saying alot. Well atleast they are finally putting a sidewalk next to a highschool near me, small victories i guess :///
The journey payment is by distance and there are no fixed ticket price. I have a 40% discount and I always pay about 12 euros going from Arnhem to Amsterdam.
This was an awesome video! Very informative! I wonder what you would think of the Italian train system, as Trenitalia gave me many problems troughoit the years
The bus-train integration was not related to privatisation but a plan in the 70's to save the railways. since passengers ridership fell. as a masterplan the regional bus services (owned by the provinces) and NS (owned by the state) had to fix there schedules to eachother. this way people did not mis there connection because it left 1 minute before there train / bus arrived at the station. This made ridership go up and made the bus and train services as they are today. Privitasation came later, and I still think it does make no sense. rails by definition are monopolies as rails a fixed and only 1 train can be on the rail at one point at one time. Also when you want to look at long term goals money might not be the best motivation, some example on a vert busy passenge rail connection trains are contantly out of schedule because of freight trains making more money for the network operator. for a public transport position this really sucks and is bad for riderschip as it creates a lot of frustration. for me public transport should be 1, transport 2. if there is enough money in freight a 3rd and 4th rail should be build. if it doesnt freight should be drive around public transport.
6:59 GOOR! omg i live there verry small town so i did not expected to see it in here but super funny lol. (Edit): I don’t know why but it is 6:30 now XD
Such a fascinating system. My favourite systems in the world are the Dutch and the Swiss. Everything in the Dutch system just seems so well done. Great branding, great stations, new and shiny trains that run frequently and on time. Amazing integration with other forms of transport, especially bikes. The only thing they lack is high speed lines. One or two more TGV/ICE style lines and it would be probably the best in the world (maybe tying with Japan). As a Brit, I'm a bit jealous of what they have over there.
As the country is quite small, high speed rail only has a limted effect on travel times and because of the intensity of the usage of the limited available land building new lines is extremely complex and very expensive. One should not compare The Netherlands with much larger countries like France.
@@dijkb I do understand the geography is different. You guys have similar challenges to the UK. There is still a case for better high speed links with other countries and the biggest cities though I think.
@@mdhazeldine Hello Mark, The biggest cities are all quite close, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht are all in the west of the country, all within a 40 mile circle( my estimate) there is a high speed line between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, linked with the high speed lines to Brussels, London and Paris. The line Amsterdam to Utrecht and Germany has to be upgraded.The only other line that should be upgraded is from the cities in the west to the north of the country. I live in Utrechtand can reach the four corners of the country, with the present intercity trains in just under two hours.
> The only thing they lack is high speed lines. One or two more TGV/ICE style lines and it would be probably the best in the world (maybe tying with Japan). As a Brit, I'm a bit jealous of what they have over there. Agreed. I went to Austria by train this summer, and it was amazing! But outside the Randstad the ICE to Germany barely goes anywhere so to get on we first had to travel to Arnhem. With works around Arnhem recently I saw ICE trains in Eindhoven and Den Bosch and I think it would be really cool to have another ICE line that goes to Germany in a more southwards direction via one of those cities. That would bring the international trains a lot closer for a lot of people.
@@mennoltvanalten7260 The usual ICE connection to Germany (Amsterdam-Utrecht- Arnhem- Germany) is not a high speed line. On other border crossings Venlo and Simpelveld in Zuid.- Limburg there is no connection to any high speed lines in Germany. The majority of International trains to Germany use the Arnhem connection, the other connections are mostly local trains and freight.
I'm late to this one again as it's been a busy week but thanks for the vid. I love watching these as I learn a lot about the railways of the world. They give me an insight into other rail systems and also make me want to visit the country lol. Although I've always wanted to go to the Netherlands, this makes me want to use their rail network. Keep up the great work😊👍
Fun fact maybe, in the Netherlands on NPO2 there is a show called Rail Away, about rail transport in diverse places. Really an amazing series to watch if you also like this kind of video's.
@@RailwaysExplained Slovakia. The trains here are almost constantly delayed, 20 minute delays are the norm, occasionally up to an hour. Even without the delay, it's really slow. For example, it takes 1h43 to travel 130 kms (avg speed 77 km/h), not sure how it compares to other countries, but seems pretty slow to me, considering that it is not a short, regional line but a line running across the entire country, connecting the two largest cities. On the other side, the tickets are quite cheap. For that 130 km trip it's 6 euros which is really cheap, and additionally, children under 15, students, and the elderly travel completely free by train. And that might be the reason why the rail infrastructure is in a neglected condition, it's being underfunded by the state, and the consumer.
To be fair the prices that the ask in the Netherlands for going by train are absurd. It is more affordable to go anywhere with a Hummer than going there by train. Yes, even with the price of 2 EUR per liter of benzine.
As a half-Dutch person, I go to Holland quite often (except for the pandemic) and I think it is the best rail service in the world.
I love Japanese railways but they have to learn a lot about constructing timetables and providing services in rural areas.
On the other hand, wherever you travel in Holland, you don't have to worry about the timetables as Intercities run every 15 minutes usually. Plus, the trains are very modern and spacious and replaced very often. I can litterally lay down on my sit and still let other people their space.
As for the energy point of view I can comment as I am an Electrical Engineer. Of course the power is provided as a mixture of different sources, but the Dutch Railways have a contract with a firm that provides green power. This contractor, sells the generated power to the electric national infrastructure, who will manage all the power sources. So, it is not that the Railways have their direct supply but you know that the energy that they use annually is covered by green sources of energy.
A good example could be the water: when you change provider it's not that you change water. You will use the same water but the contract will be different and the bills and service are managed by the provider.
So, saying that Dutch Railways rely on green power at 100% is a true statement.
I hope this clears your doubts.
Thanks for the comprehensive explanation. That's exactly what we were looking for. This comment deserves to be pinned.
you mean Holland or the Netherlands?
Such a shame you only visit Holland, Netherlands has so much more to offer. Ever been to east, it's the best part of the country
@@thatrandomguyontheinternet2477 most Dutch call their own land Holland. You can't argue with the natives on what they know best.
as a Dutch person, I much prefer the Japanese railways. You are right about rural areas, but it the Netherlands it is *really* tiring that there are weekend or week-long closures for maintenance every couple of weeks
Ngl we will still complain about the NS every chance we get
-Dutch weekly train traveler
It is in our genes to complain....about everything.
No complains no progress, thats what i always say lol.
And not without reason. The only times I've used the train was when I had to travel to the airport in Eindhoven and literally every single time the trains were delayed and/or cancelled. I've just stopped bothering with trains altogether and exclusively use the car nowadays.
@@yeahnope620 I use the train almost everyday. And I know some people who use nothing but cars. And traffic jams are about as common and frustrating as train delays.
@@yeahnope620 The on time percentage of NS trains is one of the highest in the world.
Not Just Bikes wanted to make such video for almost a year now, but Railways Explained did it first. Good for you, Railways Explained! Great content, as always.
Thank you
I'm happy to leave a video like this to the experts. Nicely done!
@@NotJustBikes I think there's space for both, though - this video was definitely more from an operational perspective, whereas your videos tend to be more from an 'end user' perspective. Both are interesting!
@@crytocc yes, I'm working on a video about trains and one about the ov chipkaart, both almost exclusively from the user's perspective.
@@NotJustBikes for the OV-chipkaart you should definitely include a segment about Student Reisproducy if you are familiar with it.
RE: "The Netherlands has one of the best railway system and are 91% on time with a 3 minute margin"
Every Dutch person: "There is a snowflake on the tracks. No wonder the trains aren't going"
Ha ha ha... Last year I saw this happening with the heavy snowing in decades...
And then to see a video of a Norwegian train bulldozing through meter high snow...
Don't forget about leaves and branches in the fall..... Or sometimes in summer the track switches get to hot and don't work anymore.
THERE IS A LEAF ON THE RAIL. EVERYONE PANIC. CANCEL ALL THE TRAINS SO WE CANNOT BE WRITTEN UP AS LATE.
@@debasish0013 Yeah. Many people probably had no clue how bad it really was. I mean, even in my city, snow dunes were reaching to the top of platforms (that's more than 70 centimeters of snow). From images and stories I heard higher up in my province (North Holland) it was even worse there. Zaandam - Uitgeest was crippled for days as there was so much snow on switches that they just couldn't clear it in time anymore.
Don't forget that with the Formula 1 Race in Zandvoort recently they had trains run every 5 minutes, easily beating every metro line in the country in frequency
@@PatheticTV our metro systems are not that frequent, in Amsterdam the lines run on mostly the same tracks, and often that's about once per 6 minutes a train. In Rotterdam it's similar, and the one to the Hague is a joke. But with current ridership they don't really need to be much more frequent than that.
90 seconds seems so much more than necessary here, can't imagine how crowded your metro stations are!
@@khulhucthulhu9952 Rotterdam has 3 lines (ABC) using the same west-east track and 2 lines (DE) using the north-south track. Between Schiedam Centrum and Capelsebrug (basically the entire width of the city) metros run every three minutes.
@@PatheticTV There a many metro systems which have more trains, but there also a lot which are less frequent. Short distance public transport is in lower need, because bikes are usually faster.
@@PatheticTV No, there is 1 train every 10 minutes lol. But some tracks have multiple lines on them, so the frequency is higher
amsterdam doesnt know that frequence* in Rotterdam we have an metro 3 minutes 20 seconds on the ABC line, and in rush hours even more frequently. Another example that Rotterdam is superior to amsterdam
17:15 Electricity doesn't care how it is generated. The grid just distributes it. So you can buy power from a company that generates only electricity from wind (or buys certificates). That company then gets paid for the power they generate. So their claim is probably accurate.
Exactly. There is some truth that the entire grid is just consuming the same energy mix, but crucially, it's not irrelevant to say that the energy needs of the trains (the train energy demand) are balanced by a renewable energy contract (the contracted energy supply). The grid is managed in such a way that the supply needs to meet the demand at all times, and the accounting of energy is made on a "balance" system. While contracting renewable energy does not shift the energy mix of the grid immediately, it does add pressure for changing it in practice: as more and more electricity users choose to contract renewable energy only, the more pressure there is to increase renewable generation in the mix, because they can only sell as much renewable energy as they generate.
@@MrRicmeme But the trains will NEVER be able to ride on renuwable electricity itself.There just isnt enough of it,even if you place windmils at every corner of the land!
Is a fairytale of the left to think that it is possible..
@@computeraddic675 That is strangely put. Even now already, there is enough wind power to power all trains, which is paid for by NS. The only inaccuracy is that, before reaching the railway system, it passes through the general grid, where its mixed with other types of energy - but there is more than enough wind energy generated in the Netherlands to power the train system.
Agreed, wouldn't make sense to connect wind directly to the train rails anyway, because you'd be wasting almost all of the generation potential overnight!
@@quanvanderknokke6219 "strangely put" is a great way to say "pointlessly political and factualy incorrect", i might copy your approach going forward :P
The most importiant thing is to remember that the Dutch railway system wasn't just given to the Netherlands by some sort of benevolant ruling class who wanted the best for it's underlings. Only trough persistant pressure and complaining from the public, and a well-unionised workforce are the railways kept in the little-above-average state that they are in. A lot of struggle went into resisting the neoliberal tendencies that would have further damaged the system like it did in the UK. And a lot more struggle is needed to make it a mode of transportation that is truely governed by and for the people, in stead of the profit-incentives of some "free"-market fundamentalists at the top.
Well said Bobby.
yes these new Creditcard form wich you need to put money on and check in and out with is terrible.. The old system was much better and also much cheaper. the old system was to buy a ticket and let a controller in the train put a stamp on it. the same as with the buses, the chauffeur would put a stamp on it
@@lexburen5932 Ik ben het met je eens wat betreft prijzen maar een chipkaart met abonnement is honderd keer handiger dan kaarten moeten kopen.
The chipcards are absolutely rubbish.
Pricing has become way less transparent, and the mark-up has been absolutely disgusting.
Aside of that, Translink BV stole about a 1000 euro from me back in the day when they implemented the system.
Failure after failure, and instead of providing traveling students a temporary alternative, I was forced to buy a train ticket every day.
Not a monthly subscription, nope, day tickets, because they wouldn't pay for a monthly subscription for some reason.
Then they frauded me and a bunch of other students by making the receipts we (had to) deliver to them "just disappear"
Politicians, media and society just ignored it after it was initially reported and carried on like nothing happened.
(It's a bit of a Dutch thing to cover horrible financial injustice up and act like it doesn't happen)
Absolutely a bunch of frauding asshole corporate cunts.
Everything that has been privatised turned into expensive crap that barely functions (looking at you too dutch mail and parcel services, phone and data)
And as said, it is an ongoing battle to keep these companies from making it much worse (Like the UK, holy shit do I hate using public transport there)
Mooi gesproken, maar dan enkel in het kader van de NS. Als dit nu ook voor bv. de politiek geld hiero. Die doen toch meestal wat ze zelf willen en dik betaald ook nog.
There is a significant error in the history section; the two main companies prior to the combination of 1917 and merger of 1939 were not SS and NCS but SS and HSM - and the HSM was basically the renamed HIJSM mentioned in the oldest history part. NCS and NBDS were the two minor mainline railways, and they were absorbed by SS before the merger. The other companies were either subsidiaries of the big two or local railways, or both.
Thanks for the comment. When you look the video you will see that we mention The Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij but we use wrong abbreviation - NCS. We should use HSM as you stated. So thank you for this note.
@@RailwaysExplained you did use a map of the NCS though!
That 1 intercity train per 10 minutes experiment has in fact been expanded to 3 more lines! Besides Amsterdam-Utrecht-Eindhoven it will feature on Nijmegen-Utrecht-Amsterdam, Rotterdam-the Hague-Leiden-Amsterdam and the Dordrecht-Rotterdam sprinter
Note that those lines are still in their infancy, at the moment the Rotterdam-the Hague-Leiden-Amsterdam line only has one intercity per 10 minutes on Wednesdays. I do see it being implemented more often soon though. Other trains don't really seem to lose efficiency when 10-minute lines are active.
Also, students receive a free subscription on the rail network as part of their study credit. If a diploma is granted within ten years, this doesn't have to be paid back. This has proven to be very attractive to students, as owning a car or motorbike is no longer necessary to travel from one corner of the country to the other. And given the punctuation of the train network one can quite reliably expect to switch trains without any problems. There are multiple students who live with their parents for a while and travel to their lectures by train every day, although that does depend on how well they are connected to the train network.
As a train driver who drives freight both in Belgium and the Netherlands, I can say the difference between is the two countries is day and night. Let’s just say it’s frustrating when you cross the boarder back onto the useless Belgian network run by Infrabel (we call Infrabrol which translates into English loosely as Infrarubbish)
haha, lol
Belgian universities produce mainly bureaucrats for the EU institutions, gender activists and political correctness. Dutch universities produce engineers, project managers, economists...
These are real life implications 😁😁😁
@@jirislavicek9954 yup, sounds about right
@@jirislavicek9954 In the Netherlands universities also have large concentrations of gender activists and relatively more political correctness than the rest of the Netherlands (but pc tends to be less in the Netherlands than in other countries), but the most left wing university of them all, the one in Wageningen, is also the worlds leading university in agricultural technology and research and responsible for the Netherlands' consistant top5 ranking of the worlds largest food exporters. The leftist universities in the Netherlands don't just preach, they actually get things done.
Flanders is always welcome to rejoin the Netherlands ;-)
I came to the Netherlands in 2019. Coming from Switzerland, I really didn't notice that much difference between the systems characteristics. That was absolutely fantastic compared to the DB I ride more frequently compared to the Dutch Railways.
Netherlands is dutch
DB ? Deutsche Bahn is German .. But otherwise, they say Swiss rail is on of the best, so.. (Apart from the fact that since Covid most people have used rail less, of course..)
@@qjtvaddict yes???
Agreed, the Swiss public transportation system is excellent as well.
@@Gotterfunken33 Dutch public transport is terrible living in the south of that country, I live in Maastricht since 2015, though I love it there, public transport is at least in my region insufficient and structurally underfunded.
You touched on it in the end but i would like to add my personal experience with the high frequency on the dutch railway network.
As someone who mostly travels between Rotterdam/Utrecht/Amsterdam, i rarely check the schedule on my routes unless deep in the evening catching the nighttrains. My average waiting times rarely exceed 15 minutes and long layovers are minimal.
You know a railway network is great when people complain about delays of 5 minutes or less
my train was delayed 23 seconds today...
Yeah, it's reassuring to know that if you miss your train, there'll be another one leaving in 15 minutes' time (if it's an Intercity train and you're at one of the larger stations like Utrecht, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Arnhem, and a couple more.
If you're taking the train at a 'rural' station in The Netherlands, with only 'stopping trains' (NS calls them Sprinters), you'll have to wait half an hour for the next train.
While in Canada, if you miss the last morning train, better find something to do because the next train will be arriving and leaving in the late afternoon.
*cries in German*
Well what a great system. Works well and more importantly they realize getting people to the train station efficiently is just as important as the trains themselves. That's a lot of bicycle parking by the way.
Something just can't be Dutch if it doesn't have some serious cycling integration. Well done by the Dutch, hope rest of the world catches soon.
@@MuhammedGemci The Netherlands would never be withought the bicycle.
@@Notthecobracommander I agree. It helps though that the country is very flat relative to other countries. You can wear a suit and ride a bicycle without worrying about sweating but in another country... encounter a hill and that's RIP suit.
@@Konkacha True that. It is the land of lower countries after all😄. Only 50% of the country is 1meter or more above sea level. I thought Texas was flat.
Yeah, I see pictures of the High-speed railway stations in Hejaz for Hajj but they look like they're out on the highway in the desert, needing taxis or buses.
Dutch people incoming to complain about their NS train getting delayed
Well, I once saw a train delayed by 90 minutes...
@@jianmingliu2767 That can only be true if almost the whole or a part of the network comes to a standstill. Because every 10 minutes at most and every hour at least a train is coming to every station. So 90 minutes delay of one train is rare, almost impossible.
@@RealConstructor I remember the days of the Fyra...
@@Pvemaster2 That was 2013. There are maybe some who remember the steam locomotives pulling one train a day, but those are other times. We’re talking about current times, at least I do.
@@RealConstructor bruh 2013 isn't even 10 years ago. What are you, 15 years old? Likening 8 years ago to the age of steam trains is trash reasoning at best
having one chip card for every public Transport and the OV Bikes in all the country is a amazing concept
Someone tried to put money on their card but couldn't figure it out so they asked me, I asked several other people, non of us could figure it out. The best part is that we all work there.
@@gabydewilde and your point is?
With all due respect, just how ground-breaking is this one chip card really for a small-sized country? I am from Hong Kong, where such a system was introduced as early as 1997. I mean, for me, it is the way to be, and really more place should be doing this. But sadly not.
@@chiuwong4057 yeah it is more easy for one City. I am in Berlin and I have one card for all Public Transport here but it is useless in other cities in Germany.
In NL you use the same Card for the Metro in Amsterdam, the intercity Train, Tram in Rotterdam aswell for the last Bus in the last village somewhere else. Everybody in the country accepts it, the tarrifs and payments are easy to undrestand.
The standard OV-chipkaart payment is certainly helpful, but "the future of today" would be contactless payment with any bank card, credit card or a phone. Think London. Also is already in use in many other European cities, or is just coming.
In the case of the power grid, all the electricity is collected in a lake, so to speak, and then distributed to everyone. If you order solar power, a larger amount of solar power is put into the lake. You, as the end user, do not necessarily receive 100% solar power from your socket, but you increase the share of solar power for everyone. So it is actually not worse if the electricity does not go directly to the train line but into the public grid. Hope I could help.
Your money only goes to the solar / wind company! So you get indeed 100% renewable power.
It literally does not matter at all, I'm kinda mystafied that he even moans about it to begin with.
In 2019 Dutch Rail Traffic Controllers visited Switzerland to gain experience with their systems. Purposely no directors were on that trip so that the main focus would be on operational personnel working on the Swiss simulators for a couple of days, instead of talking about powerpoints in boardrooms. Thanks to the hospitality of the Swiss colleagues, the Dutch operators gained valuable in depth experience the Dutch use for their digital rail traffic control plans.
Great video. Haven't lived in The Netherlands since 1995 and rarely take the train when I visit, so it's great to see what happened since I left. My parents never owned a car and had public transit cards instead, so I grew up riding trains, trams and buses instead of cars. Thanks for making this video!
Well done the Netherlands and Railway Explained gets the credit 🙏🙏
Thank you ☺️
As a train enthusiast and transport researcher from the Netherlands, I mostly agree. This is something that's been worked towards for the last 15 or so years. Punctuality was abysmal around the early 00s, below 80%. Nowadays, okay, part of it is due to lengthening the train schedules between cities somewhat in some places such that trains can effectively make up some time to get back on schedule, but a lot of it is also due to targeted investment to reduce the number of high-risk points and improve incident management to take care of them quickly (you touched on this when talking about subcontractor maintenance areas). Utrecht Centraal had its track layout renovated completely, dramatically reducing the number of switches and points where train lines cross.
If I had to still mention areas for improvement though, it's probably about the quality of and travel times on long-distance trains. Often, long distance trains just have one operational toilet, or are severely overcrowded in student rush hours- none of them have an onboard restaurant, and onboard catering is also barely a thing - really not an experience befitting of an 'intercity' product, although of course they are more like interregio services when compared to products in other european countries. It does limit the usage of the mode of transport that trains are for middle-to-high income travellers, both for business and recreational usage. Tickets are fairly expensive relative to other European countries that have much better long-distance products in terms of service quality. As far as travel times go, there is one single high speed line that the Thalys, Eurostar, and trains limited to 160km/h (Intercity Direct) use, passing by Amsterdam, Amsterdam Airport, Rotterdam and Breda. Between Utrecht and Amsterdam, trains can go up to 200 km/h if I recall correctly. But other than that, most of the country (and train types) are limited to 120 or 140 km/h. That can definitely be faster and would make a huge difference for people living in the country's periphery (Groningen, Twente, Arnhem/Nijmegen, Eindhoven area, Maastricht) or for international passenger traffic to eastern Belgium and Germany. If these speeds were increased somewhat, the train would suddenly become a viable alternative to cars for a lot more people. I guess this is the next area for targeted investment. There have been talks of high speed lines to the north and east of the country for decades, and now that the EU seems to be focused on it and the climate change induced transport revolution is around the corner, it's time to invest in them.
So I will say that when I saw the title ''how all railways should look', i definitely didn't agree with it- there's so much to improve. It works awesome as a de facto metro network, but for mid- to long distances the quality needs to be much improved to become a serious alternative to car travel and to truly offer economic benefits to society.
Thanks for this comprehensive comment. There is always room for improvement. But our title can be read like this - every country should emulate the Netherlands and the railway should be improved every year, even in the context of launching initiatives such as NS taxi, providing flexible door-to-door service, the introduction of a train service for every 10-15 minutes etc. Many countries do not have that..
Imagine on board restaurants when the max travel time possible is around 3 hours lol
@@peeryoutube 5 hours, actually, and imagine being hungry and thirsty with no time to leave the train. a railcatering service is sorely missed in the NS intercity trains!
@@GovernmentOfLocany Indeed, it would actually save a lot of time. You're wasting 15 to 20 minutes on the train station to get some snacks, if it was available on the train you could take 1 or 2 trains earlier.
@@RailwaysExplained NS taxi is a horrible service. Called ones. Never arrived. I had to call the central only to hear that the driver cancelled my appointment (why did I need to call them?) Looking at the feedback of people. I wasn't by far, the only one.
I studied last year in the Netherlands and now I'm in Canada, I miss the rail travel and the transport systems of Europe ,nothing beats that.
You missed out on the railway stations, which are really special when you compare them to most other countries.
But NS trains are old, ugly and dirty, compared to others.
@@tsjukemar he talked about the stations not the trains
I think Antwerpen railway station is one of the world's most spectacular 👍
@@jirislavicek9954 In Belgium, als Luik/Liège is special. In NL, Rotterdam, Breda, Arnhem, Utrecht. But also smaller stations like Driebergen-Zeist. Point being: the 100m around every station has a high value which attracts investments.
@@tsjukemar found the first dutch hater
9:35 the Kampen - Zwolle and Zwolle - Almelo railway lines, coloured non-electrified on this map, has actually been electrified a few years ago. The non-electrified Roermond - Venlo - Nijmegen line is to be electrified within the next three years. Meanwhile, the Rotterdam - Hook of Holland line is technically no longer a railway line as it has been integrated in the Rotterdam Metro network.
Indeed, the Hoek van Holland-Rotterdam line is now part of the Metro/Light Rail running from one end of the city to the other, and then through 4 nearby cities,
Also a very interesting Rail Network of a different kind of train that Rotterdam and Den Hague has been put together along with the various cities and towns in between
@@Voron_Aggrav But that used to be a former railnetwork as well. Randstadrail is almost only a refurbishment (a very costly one, I might add, at 2,2 billion Euro or so) of a former rail network to a kind-of metrosystem. Most notable feature involved the closure of the 'Krakeling', the 'Zoetermeer Stadslijn' (Pretzel, the Zoetermeer Cityline). It was called this way as it rather closely resembled a pretzel on the network map.
It has had a few extensions since it's (troublesome) startup in 2006.
@@weeardguy you'd need my dad and not me for those kinds of details, I've been born in Vlaardingen but long since left Holland for one of the provinces on the German border, the Hoek van Holland line I'm aware of as I still use it for family once in a while, and I've used the Sweetlake city one for appointments few years back
Did anyone else catch how he showed Toronto footage in that statistic about 5% of railway passengers arriving at the station by car?
I'm from Germany and I envy the Dutch so much for their frequent efficient train system. Love NS
Be gald you are a german. its cheap to travel in germany. i was in berlin couple of weeks back. holy crap that city is cheap. 40 euros for a metro ticket could travel 6 days with it. and nobody who controls you what so ever. and dont get me started on how cheap everything is. my home village in the netherlands is more expensive then anything i have seen in berlin.
DB rail system is way larger and more complex. But mentality of the Germans is diffrent more it can't be done becouse of the rules. the Dutch is more it can be done if we almost comply to all of the rules.
Great video, with interesting facts I didn't know.
However, I triggered on the map shown at 11:14
What you've got there are the management areas of the Dutch Waterboards. The correct image you're looking for can be found in the 'Beheerplan 2019' of the 'Tweede kamer', page 18.
Would really like to see a video about South Korea's railways next; 6th most passenger-kilometers in the world in a small country of just over 50 million people!
One member of the RE team was in South Korea in 2019 for a one-month training on the construction and implementation of railway infrastructure projects. So we are essentially personally familiar about the performance of these railways. And it is definitely on our to-do list
@@RailwaysExplained Great to hear! This channel is #1 for understanding different rail networks!
South Korea has a decent railway comparing with American ones, but regionally speaking neither the density nor the electrification rate doesn't even reach North Korean ones, although North Korea's extensive electrified railway frequently comes without electricity.
@@GyacoYu I have to imagine that in addition to often lacking electricity, a lot of at least secondary lines--maybe even primary ones--are in very poor condition, which will limit speed and capacity, to say nothing of internal travel restrictions in North Korea. South Korea is also building a lot of new rail lines (both regular and high-speed), and believe it or not, already has the densest high-speed rail network in the world..
@Zsombor 0.3 Hungary is actually only a little bit smaller than South Korea: 93,000km2 vs 100,000km2. One fifth the population density, but not actually a much smaller country.
In the USA when we're faced with challenges like traffic safety or flooding we get "thoughts and prayers". It's amazing to see actual plans to solve problems.
Great video!
Just one thing about the freight operators, ERS Railways, HGK, Rail4Chem & Veolia Cargo do not operate (anymore) in the Netherlands. Instead some large freight operators today are RTB Cargo, LTE, SBB Cargo, RFO, Lineas, Captrain, RRF & BLS.
Thanks for the information ☺️ We should do additional fact-checking.
@@RailwaysExplained Don't worry: the freight-operator world is a fast-changing world. Some operators are only active for a few months as either their former competitor had to give up because of x reason, went bankrupt or just decided to 'explore new opportunities' where the current transport just doesn't fit in. Could very well be things have changed again by now.
Great story ! I can speak from experience using the NS and Arriva trains. Very punctual- clean - friendly service- always ready to answer your questions. 😄
Am Dutch myself, did already knew things, but I also learned a lot!
'Best railway' :
- 1 cm of snow: all trains cancelled
- having to switch trains in 5 mins: the train your in is always late, the one you have to catch leaves early, you miss your train
- delayed/cancelled trains because of branches on the rails lmao
- police has to come, because someone locked themselves in the toilet without a ticket: 40 min delay
-prices: UNAFFORDABLE
And still we say "NS sucks", but really it's great that all university or HBO students get free public transport. Yea sometimes there are issues but on almost all days operations are smooth. Only thing that sucks is that almost all trains have free WiFi and charging ports, but of course my route still has old carriages...
giving students free access has nothing to do with NS, it's the ministry of education's doing.
NS still sucks. Chronic delays, chronically overcrowded during rush hour, poor customer service, frequent equipment problems.
And yes, part of that is ProRail's failure, but ProRail is effectively NS.
Still remember being dumped on the side of the track in the late 1990s because the driver hadn't been told the next station was closed for network maintenance. 500 people were told that "NS will send busses".
That was the 3rd train dumping its load in the middle of nowhere on a railroad crossing outside of any town... 1500 people waiting, half an hour later 1 (yes, one) bus appears.
In the end the army (this being not too far from an army base) sent trucks instead after some soldiers who'd been on their way to work called in to their bases and arranged things.
Only Dutch/EU students are eligible for free public transport. EU/International students are not eligible from what I heard
@@sultankamysbayev1937 They are though, at least my former Indonesian best friend who studied at a university (and a lot of other people at that student housing kinda park/complex).
Yea this is great, I'm so using this to the fullest extent. I'm going to be so depressed when the free travel ends lol.
@@sultankamysbayev1937 It's part of the package of subsidised grants and loans all Dutch students get from the government so yes, it'd only be for them (yes, more loans than grants nowadays, when I was a student it was all grants and full access to all public transport, but that was 25 years ago).
Excellent video, but the freight train operators DB Schenker has been renamed DB Cargo and the HGK is no longer a freight train operator since 2012! The german HGK has joined its freight train operations with Neuss Düsseldorfer Häfen and merged that operation in the new company Rhein Cargo, that operate the traffic.
Thanks for this info. We should do additional fact-checking.
@@RailwaysExplained also Veolia Cargo doesn't exist anymore for now ten years, it's now called Captrain.
The best railway network ever! A lot of various trains, and the Netherlands is also a very nice country for toerists.
The Fyra debacle would have been a nice tid bit on the high speed line Amsterdam - Brussels
I appreciate this video! The Dutch seem to have one of the most people orientated transport systems in the world, with their focus on railways and on bikes. The channel BicycleDutch has been making videos for years on cycling in the Netherlands
Also check Not Just Bikes. 🙂
Well, given the flat topography of most of the Netherlands, that really encourages the use of bicycles.
@@Sacto1654 yes, although there still needs to be the political will to allocate space for protected cycling infrastructure. More so, the emergence of E-bikes are helping with tackling the challenges of hills
@@Sacto1654 In reality, good infrastructure encourages it. The terrain has little to do with it.
That's a non-argument. There are a lot of flat river deltas out there in the world that still have very bad infrastructure. But being hilly shouldn't be a reason for bad bike infrastructure, because the Dutch know how to build bike infrastructure in Arnhem and Maastricht too. Those places are pretty hilly.
Great video! You really captured the essence of the Dutch railway system. The presence of such a great railway system also has effects on how we are developing our cities further. Areas around railway stations are currently prime suspects for high density developments focusing on active modes of transportation instead of cars. This helps solve the housing crisis, while not increasing the amount of highways and other car infrastructure normally associated with such high density developments.
fun fact staatsspoorwegen(ss) also operated its trains on the islands of Java and Sumatra at that time and made it the largest railway company in the Duct East Indische
all railway infrastructure such as bridges, viaducts, tunnels, depots and stations are still in use and their reliability is extraordinary. Many abandoned bridges and stations are still standing and not destroyed by plants and earthquakes.
Amazing. Thanks for the information.
The Dutch railway system is great, unless a single leaf falls on the track or there is 1mm of snowfall because that brings the whole network to a halt for some reason.
NS has a contract with various wind farms to produce enough energy to power its rail system - "enough" in this case is about 1.2 TWh per year. Since the rail system is connected to the grid as you mentioned correctly, it is true that at any given point in time the energy that the trains use might come from any source. Nevertheless, adding this 1.2 TWh to the national grid system annually means that those 1.2 TWh need not be produced by some other carbon-intensive source. Whether those 1.2 TWh are directly consumed by a house, a factory, or the rail system is irrelevant. At the end of the day, or better say the year, all the energy needed to run trains is added to the system through wind farms.
Liberazation of Dutch railways means... those trajects least profitable are up for takes... all other profitable trajects remain in possession of Nederlandse Spoorwegen
Great video, 2 things I noticed on the first watch:
- the map of the electrified and non-electrified routes was outdated for at least a couple of years.
- while there is currently an active 10 minute train service between Eindhoven and Amsterdam. There will be 2/3 more from December on, could have been nice to mention!
Other than that, great video ✌️
I think a major factor in the customer satisfaction is that in the last couple of years nearly every major station, even in medium or small sized cities, underwent upgrades or renewal. 'Dilapitated' stations simply don't exist unless you cross the border into Belgium or Germany where it immediately feels like you went back in time 25 years.
I'd rather be in a rat infested pit than the clean stations with trains that sometimes don;t show up for an hour. There is no way this many people are satisfied with the NS here. It is too unreliable, it doesn't matter that 95% of the trains run on time. many times per year the whole system breaks down and you end up where you need to go an hour late. No sane person shows up an hour early 95% of the year to deal with that eventuality
@@kapytanhook unreliable and also expensive as fuck. A little bit of snow? There goes 80% of the scheduled trains. Not to speak of all the times my train for some reason couldn't continue on and I had to continue my journey by bus provided by the NS. Also, don't take the train to your flight unless you're willing to shell out hundreds for a taxi in the event of a delay.
@@vestikes I love how devoid of actual facts your response really is.
@@therealdutchidiot good thing I'm Dutch then, no? These are common Dutch facts. I recommend asking a Dutch person about NS. You'll get the same rant. You might want to read @kaptyanhook their comment carefully aswell.
@@therealdutchidiot aha, jij bent ook een Nederlander. Jij zou beter moeten weten.
Please make one about the German System! It is very comprehensive and unique
It is on our to do list ☺️
@@RailwaysExplained wow can’t wait!
Unique in the delays every day.
@@henkoosterink8744 no, in the mixed traffic, the way high speed rail got accessible to everyone, also in the countryside and the big investment plan coming up now.
@@oerrukhsfgkh1612 Yeah, the big investment plan. I travel to Germany regularly, and i have a lot of delays. In september they left me for 4 hours in the middle of nowhere. No information no busses, and hundreds of angry people trying to catch their flight.
Very interesting video!
Thank you for the French subtitles, it helps me a lot 🙏🏻
Regarding the green energy. In Europe, and maybe even beyond, green electricity is certified. For every 1MWh of green power produced, the production company gets a certificate. And when you sell that power, you sell the certificate with it. How it works exactly, I do not know. But the goal is that anyone buying "green" electricity can be certain of the origin of that power. In case of the railways, they buy power from the Eneco windfarm and they end up with the certificates from that windfarm in an amount equal to the power they consumed. The fact that there is a difference between when the power is generated and when it is consumed is less important for the fact that the railway companies can claim that 100% of the consumed power is green and comes from those windparks. They basically use the grid as a form of storage, which is of course incorrect.
In Norway all energy is green. Because they have a ton of hydropower.
So people living there don’t think about green power. The certificates sold in the Netherlands come from there.
So on paper we have green coal power and the Norwegians have grey hydropower.
In the end profit from stupidity.
@@1barnet1 And yet, that is incorrect. While it is true that Norway only generates green power and generates more power than it needs, it sells a lot of that green power meaning that it has to 'import' grey power again because the green one is sold on to other countries.
@@Hans-gb4mv Which comes down to the same thing. Norwegians use grey power on paper and we use "norwegian" power which is produced in the local coal plant.
@@1barnet1 So what. As long as the total amount of green power produced is on the rise, that is what ultimately matters. If we can use capitalism to achieve that, why not do that? We need every trick in the book to get carbon neutral (or negative) before the permanent damage we're doing to the climate gets too bad.
@@rikwisselink-bijker This is not helping to get carbon neutral. This is greenwashing fossil energy. Same with biomass. Let's subsidize cutting forests on the other side of the atlantic to ship it here to burn.
We need more solar wind and nuclear. And this is cutting down our ability to do so.
18:59 that’s the station I always use to get to my university! That’s awesome to see here
Absolutely spot on with this video! And to clear it up, NS is just getting better and better as new trains are to be presented end of the year or early next year (ICNG) and hopeful for new orders for a new double decker to replace the DDZ which is surprisingly still grounded.
I'd have loved to see a bit on the rolling stock used in the Netherlands. Most of the Sprinters used by NS and other operators are just run-of-the-mill trains that are used across Europe, but I genuinely think the VIRM is the best model of intercity train anywhere, and of course a fair few Koplopers are still in operation, and they are fascinating.
You should take a closer look at the highspeed rail in the Netherlands. That flopped big time because the cities and governments insited on making them stop at Amsterdam - Schiphol - Rotterdam and The Hague all with very short distance between those stations so the trains could never reach their top speed and were practically useless eventhough they have their own seperate lines built. So there are trains for wich you have to pay commision that are a bit faster with a train consiting of two semi-old German locomotives with old carriages. The liberalisation meant that the prices doubled. Going by train or by car are financially almost even, so people opt to go by car more often leading to congestion on the road networks.
As a Dutch-German living in Germany (close to the border), I love taking the train to the Netherlands, especially when inside the Netherlands. It's just so much more reliable and relaxing than DB imo.
As a dutchman my only real gripe with the railway system is that it takes twice as long to get somewhere and it's over twice as expensive compared to going by car, alone. Add in passengers and the price problem multiplies.
Even in rush hour, cars are still the faster option.
A car will be faster, most of the time. People who have to commute can get a discount or compensation from their employer that makes the extra travel time worthwile and cheaper than going by car, especially after taxes and maintenance. It's the incidental leisure trips that are relatively expensive.
Thanks for this video, very nice work and interesting perspectives. It taught me some new things too. Here and there, a critical note might have been inserted, some examples of which are:
- Syntus indeed started out to create synergy between train and bus, but this was found to be difficult to assure, especially after getting concessions in other parts of the country.
- The goods line from Rotterdam to Germany (Betuwelijn) was a failure for quite some time, starting with major construction delays, followed by a limited use because the line was not ready on the German side.
- Yes, the high speed line to Antwerp went into operation in 2009, but eleven years later, it still has not come fruition, because the Fyra trains that were supposed to run on it were extremely unreliable and got dumped. Only a few high-speed trains (Thalys, Eurostar) can use the line with higher speeds (but still well below design speed).
- The KPI of punctuality did not improve without a hitch. The Dutch railways received heavy criticism for many years, and of course making the necessary changes (in equipment, infrastructure, time tables, ...) has been a huge effort that took many years to accomplish. It's impressive what they did there.
Thank you!
Thanks for making me realise how fortunate we are to have such system.
My Grandfather designed the Dutch Railways.
I do think the privatization of the Dutch railways was a bad move. It wasn't quite as disasterous as it was in Britain cause the transition was better handled but I still think it was a net negative. Trains should be government institutions cause that's what they are in effect. They are there to serve the people and enable the economy and they aren't really there as profitable economies in their own right. Trains also function best as part of an overall national transportation network and operating them in isolation as companies is less efficient. It doesn't matter how good the trains themselves are if the bus services connected to them are not up to snuff.
It hasn't been that bad yet but it could far more easily get bad.
i totally agree with you. privatization of a national railway IS bad. indeed very bad move by the dutch government NS and prorail.
When visiting the Netherlands, I was mostly impressed by the high frequency on all lines. It's amazing that between almost every two major cities there's a train every 15 minutes. And on some lines there's an Intercity train every 15 minutes in addition to a Sprinter train every 15 minutes.
amazing isn't it ... my small suburban station 25 km from Amsterdam has 6 departures an hour ... in each direction... 3 stops down the track a small city of 85,000 has a station with 10 departures an hour in each direction, including international trains to Berlin every 2 hours. It's 11pm here and there are a dozen departures in the next hour going various places...
@@funkygawy and yet the national hobby seems to be to bitch about how much the ns sucks...
@@ukeyaoitrash2618 that's utter nonsense
we also like to complain about other things
Foreigners: Wow, Dutch railway is something else!
Dutchies: *eternally grumbling about the NS while stuffing our faces with kaasbroodjes from the kiosk*
And that's the thing. Most Dutch people haven't seen the poor performance across the border.
Being very chauvinistic: The Dutch Railway System is really good. It is clean, fast, and punctual!
Everybody deserves a Dutch Railway System
Yes please. Send a commission to the Czech Republic to implement some serious changes here! We have the world's second most dense railway network but many local lines didn't see much improvements since they were built during the times of Austro-Hungarian empire. Main lines work well but there are still big reserves in speed, connectivity, punctuationality and rolling stock replacement. Situation is improving but not fast enough.
my dad actually worked on the Betuwe Lijn so it's quite fun to see it mentioned!
I enjoy watching rail cams at Twello and Helmond, what a contrast Netherlands rail is to the US! So much passenger rail and even the freight trains are clean and tidy. Plus it's a relaxing look into town life.
its not only better to look at but its also alot nicer. I live in Mierlo-Hout in Helmond and pass railcrossing every day when cycling to school or going to the local grocerystore and its a very nice place to be.
I wish we had a Dutch style rail system in Australia, although the one thing you don't need in the Netherlands is overnight trains. To go by train from my city to two-thirds of the way up the coast is a 24 hour trip, and to get to the other side of the country is a 70-75 hour trip. Add to that the expense. It's far cheaper to drive or fly than go by train which is mainly geared for tourists. Our trains that service regional towns are pretty slow and antiquated.
I now give you permission to copy.
🫡
You always make my day by posting a video. Thank you.
You're welcome.
The most fun thing is that sometimes you can see those old locomotives ride to. As in last weekend (beginning of october) there was an even where the trains ride to Gouda and took you to Rotterdam (Where it's storage hall is stationed). Seriously fun trip to experience and not expensive for 7 50 per person. Sometimes also other trains visit to.
As a dutch person myself. I wish we had a lot more high-speed rail.
The connection in the Randstad is close to great, but everything east of Utrecht and below Den Haag? It's just not up there.
Of course, there are fewer people living there, but it's silly that I have to jump 3 trains to go from Amsterdam to say Apeldoorn, and it taking almost twice as long as a car ride.
bro there are direct trains from Amersfoort to Amsterdam
I mean Apeldoorn
the nature of the Dutch network (curvy track, frequent stops) prevents higher speeds.
@@Leonium797 Could be that there were some typical dutch "issues" that day, but I had to go from Haarlem to Amsterdam, from Amsterdam to Utrecht and then from Utrecht to Apeldoorn. It was on a Sunday by the way. Sundays always suck.
And to edit this one:
A two-way trip? 45 goddamn euro's, I mean, that's silly when compared to gas prices. A car ride from and back is what? 15 euro's max.
You can literally take the sprinter from AMS to appeldoorn.. or take the IC Berlijn.
Being Dutch, I really appreciate that you did the best (being a computer or human) you can pronouncing ‘Nederlandse Spoorwegen’ wel done.
Dutch pronunciation is not really that difficult - on my first trip there, I learned the most important items were:
G and CH are both a throaty H (like loch in Scottish); OE = English OO (as in fool); OO = long O (as in English go); IJ = I (as in English high); UI is the most difficult for English speakers, sort of starts like OW but ends I (so you can see that Zuid is just South spelled differently ... or vice-versa).
I'm interested that in the 1990s the network was divided into 'profitable' and 'unprofitable' lines; back in the 1960s Beeching did the same with the UK rail network, and has been criticised ever since. After all, an 'unprofitable' line can still be of benefit to the system as a whole, so that if you close it, general profitability does not get better, and may even worsen. And profitabily of a line may improve if it is run more competently, or so as to make better connections. British Railways was suspected of running services at unhelpful times, so as to enable it to make a case for closures. It doesn't look, from your map, as if there have been many closures of rail routes in the Netherlands
@@ricktownend9144It’s always hard to convey the sound of vowels that are pronounced differently in another language (or even non-existing!) and you did a very decent job for most of them. Let me see if I can finetune the last two you mentioned though: pronouncing IJ as the I in ‘high’ sounds a bit like a foreigner trying to pronounce IJ (if I may say so)
Like G/CH, there is also another notation for the sound IJ: the other one is EI. And that last one (ei) is a closer approximation of how to pronounce it: start with the ‘e’ from ‘egg’ and end with the ‘ee’ from ‘knee’.
Ironically, even among native Dutch speakers, there is a shift going on towards the way you described it, so you will have the last laugh eventually ;)
UI is a whole different beast, not only hardest to pronounce for non-native speakers, but also hardest to explain… not if you were a Scot though, I noticed that they pronounce ‘out’ and ‘down’ almost exactly the way we pronounce ‘uit’ and ‘duin’, very fascinating!
The difficult part of explaining the sound of UI, is that it requires another sound that is difficult for English speakers: UU. Think of the ‘e’ in ‘brew’, without narrowing your lips towards the end of the sound. That’s our UU.
Now start with the ‘e’ from ‘egg’ and transform it into our UU. Repeat a number of times, with ever decreasing emphasis on the first ‘e’. That should do the trick (I hope)
Regarding non-profitable lines: not many have been closed, but NS stopped exploiting them. Other companies took over, with varying results. Near Rotterdam, two lines were turned into light rail and connected to the city metro network. The first one, to The Hague and in use since 2006, has seen passenger numbers quintuple, the other one (to Hoek van Holland) opened near the end of 2019, and then covid happened… so it still has to prove its worth, but the first months were promising nonetheless. The line was recently extended to the beach, that should also be beneficial for passenger numbers if the weather allows for it.
Since everything is basically connected to the grid, it doesn't really matter. when they say they use 100% wind-energy it means that they buy 100% windenergy, but it doesn't matter where it is produced. Just that the amount of electricity they use is produced somewhere by wind exclusively for them.
Nothing was more delightful than seeing a koplopper and a belgian diesel class 62 side by side at Roosendaal in the 80s: the two most butch trains ever.
When it makes the national news that trains are heavily delayed you know you've got a pretty good system, else it wouldn't be newsworthy.
Something that should be mentioned is that all this comes at a price. While our railway system is great, it’s also very expensive. A single ticket from Amsterdam to Rotterdam in peak hours will cost you about €19, assuming you want to get back too that’s another €19. It is too expensive for many working class people to replace their car.
i will put it simple as a Dutch person myself:
usually when we start complaining about basically anything, there is at least a small margin to improve upon whatever we complain about.
this is due to us not only seeking but also desire perfection above all.
if perfection is not met, one can expect a complaint.
this doesn't mean despite our harsh complaints, we don't appreciate what our railways(example) mean to us. because lets also be real: where would we be without it?
This is really true, we take too much for granted but we don’t realise that.
this is overly exaggerated
Regarding the situation of wind power: they ensure the same amount of power that they consume is generated by wind power. Theres no guarantee that they actually run on 100% wind power but they make sure in cooperation with ENECO that theres as much production as the railways consume at all times.
It's fun to recognize the city names on the old maps with different spelling (like Leyden is nowadays Leiden). At 2:18 my tiny village where I was born is on there! Warmond! It no longer has a train station, it was destroyed in 1964 when it was 100 years old. Although a new station is build nearby which happened when I still lived there. It's on the border of Warmond and Sassenheim but they named it Station Sassenheim.
Perhaps it will change back when it is 100 years of age? You just trade the station between towns every century
I subscribed bc I think it’s interesting to hear these explanations of backstories. I would really love if you could do Germany next, I would LOVE to hear your opinion on it as I had pretty bad experiences lately but I think the system has a lot of potential and I would love from you to hear what and how they could improve. I’ve lived in Germany, NL and France and out of the three so far I preferred the French for punctuality and speed and the German one of the inner design of their trains. For NL I only used the train a few times to travel bc I was pretty restricted due to Covid and bc I was living in the city I biked everywhere. What I loooove in NL is how easy and customer/user friendly anything is within the country. The fact that I can go from Rotterdam let’s say Groningen and get off the train and step on the first bus I see, not having to think about figuring out the ticket system of a new city is suuuuch a luxury. When in Paris for example, I usually had to first wait in line 15min to draw a ticket and then figure out from where to where it’s valid etc. Being able to use the same Transport Card everywhere I go is something I definitely don’t wanna ever miss again in my life!
The few times I’ve driven with NS where really pleasant tho, no delays, flexible and frequent connections, no cancellations. I only which the system was a bit faster… Amsterdam-Groningen for example taking 2:20h while being a smaller distance than Paris-Lille which takes only 1h is a crazy difference. Of course I realise this has to do with the intermediate stops but it would be nice if there was one small direct HS train going in the morning and one at night bc this way I always see myself leaving earlier than I would like to. And on another note I would really like the tickets to be cheaper (a flaw that all three systems have) one weekend in Rotterdam costing me 60€ for transportation is just insane. I wish they had more options reduction for young people (not just for Dutch students)
On the other hand all those speedy connections and reductions in fares don’t give you anything if the punctuality sucks, which is what is the case with the DB one of the most fragile systems ever… I took the DB 5 times in the past half a year 5/5 had 5.5h+ delays due to minor storms or strikes.. if it wasn’t the only viable option for medium distances I wouldn’t take it anymore. This is why I would really like an analysis of it done by you :) thanks
Having a personal interest in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where, over this past few years, I have learned about the fact that, in both cases, the rail network is a mix of 25 kv AC and 3 kv DC I think it is a very interesting subject how those two systems compare, also being aware that 25 kv AC is gradually supplanting 3 kv DC in both countries. If you say that the overwhelmingly 1.5 kv DC-operated Dutch system is so good it should be a suitable 'laboratory' to see if DC has a long-term future after all.
25 kV AC is becoming the norm in Europe and is slowly replacing other electrification systems. It has the most advantages and the least disadvantages.
The 3 kV DC is originally an Italian standard. DC was historically easier to work with. But it is less suitable for transferring high power modern locomotives or high speed trains require, has the greatest losses and usually requires parallel larger diameter cable that feeds the overhead line for that reason. Neighbouring Poland uses this system. So does the north part of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Germans (+ Austria + Scandinavia) have their own 15 kV AC 16.7 Hz (1000 rpm) system. It is a system developped in 1920s when transforming 50 Hz was a technical serious technical problem. Most other countries adopted 25 kV 50 Hz later when advancements in science allowed to use it's potential. This is the system what the southern part of the Czech Republic and Slovakia uses (and more and more European countries)
The 1.5 kV DC system that Netherland uses is quite outdated system and I believe will be replaced eventually. There is a historic line in the Czech Republic between Tábor and Bechyně opened in 1906 that uses this 1.5 kV DC. This system will be preserved for it's historical value.
Czech and Slovak railways use single-system locomotives that can run only on 3 kV or 25 kV or dual locomotives that can run on both. Some modern locomotives could be bought in versions that can use all 4 major systems (1.5 kV DC, 3 kV DC, 15 kV AC, 25 kV AC).
14:57 I love the sudden Toronto b-roll
Sejarah perkeretaapian Belanda sangat bermanfaat
Being from the US, I am so impressed by how much emphasis The Netherlands places on transportation, and they are very organized about it as well. I wish we had a system like that here, but we only have it in big cities, and for long distances that from my own experience are slow, grueling rides. Most of Europe is light years ahead of US when it comes to public transportation.
Regarding punctuality: The thing about the Netherlands is that the schedule changes very often for maintenance or other reasons. So being "on time" becomes quite relative. It might be on time based on the recently updated schedule, but it is not at all according to the annual schedule. It is still not very bad, but this fact does really affect the reliability of the network I think.
As a Dutch, I approve this (very nice and interesting) message..
The electricity they use gets put into the grid by these wind farms. So yes, they receive the normal mix of the grid, but their usage in kWh is put into the grid as wind.
Great video, the Netherlands and Railway Explained. We can be proud
Every time I watch one of these videos, it really makes me unbelievably jealous. I wish there was some semblance of public transit and especially trains in Houston. Which coming from me, a person that loves cars and loves driving is saying alot. Well atleast they are finally putting a sidewalk next to a highschool near me, small victories i guess :///
Watch this video from NotJustBikes about Houston, you might recognize your problems: ruclips.net/video/uxykI30fS54/видео.html
@@williamhoogendijk2536 Way ahead of you, I actually live near that area : (
the Dutch people complain a lot about our railways, but we're spoiled. ;-)
You forgot that Abellio filed bankruptcy in Germany
I am Russian, who lives in the Netherlands. What I find funny, is that people will still complain about NS, no matter how good it actually is.
No complaints, no progress. And we really love complaining.
Thanks for this amazing content
The journey payment is by distance and there are no fixed ticket price. I have a 40% discount and I always pay about 12 euros going from Arnhem to Amsterdam.
This was an awesome video! Very informative! I wonder what you would think of the Italian train system, as Trenitalia gave me many problems troughoit the years
The bus-train integration was not related to privatisation but a plan in the 70's to save the railways. since passengers ridership fell. as a masterplan the regional bus services (owned by the provinces) and NS (owned by the state) had to fix there schedules to eachother. this way people did not mis there connection because it left 1 minute before there train / bus arrived at the station.
This made ridership go up and made the bus and train services as they are today.
Privitasation came later, and I still think it does make no sense. rails by definition are monopolies as rails a fixed and only 1 train can be on the rail at one point at one time.
Also when you want to look at long term goals money might not be the best motivation, some example on a vert busy passenge rail connection trains are contantly out of schedule because of freight trains making more money for the network operator. for a public transport position this really sucks and is bad for riderschip as it creates a lot of frustration.
for me public transport should be 1, transport 2. if there is enough money in freight a 3rd and 4th rail should be build. if it doesnt freight should be drive around public transport.
6:59 GOOR! omg i live there verry small town so i did not expected to see it in here but super funny lol.
(Edit): I don’t know why but it is 6:30 now XD
I know none of those freight train carriers other than DB, and I have been living here for a while.
Good accurate video, from the Netherlands
Wow, it was complete coincidence that I stumbled upon your channel but it was a happy one. Great stuff and keep it up!
Such a fascinating system. My favourite systems in the world are the Dutch and the Swiss. Everything in the Dutch system just seems so well done. Great branding, great stations, new and shiny trains that run frequently and on time. Amazing integration with other forms of transport, especially bikes. The only thing they lack is high speed lines. One or two more TGV/ICE style lines and it would be probably the best in the world (maybe tying with Japan). As a Brit, I'm a bit jealous of what they have over there.
As the country is quite small, high speed rail only has a limted effect on travel times and because of the intensity of the usage of the limited available land building new lines is extremely complex and very expensive. One should not compare The Netherlands with much larger countries like France.
@@dijkb I do understand the geography is different. You guys have similar challenges to the UK. There is still a case for better high speed links with other countries and the biggest cities though I think.
@@mdhazeldine Hello Mark, The biggest cities are all quite close, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht are all in the west of the country, all within a 40 mile circle( my estimate) there is a high speed line between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, linked with the high speed lines to Brussels, London and Paris. The line Amsterdam to Utrecht and Germany has to be upgraded.The only other line that should be upgraded is from the cities in the west to the north of the country. I live in Utrechtand can reach the four corners of the country, with the present intercity trains in just under two hours.
> The only thing they lack is high speed lines. One or two more TGV/ICE style lines and it would be probably the best in the world (maybe tying with Japan). As a Brit, I'm a bit jealous of what they have over there.
Agreed. I went to Austria by train this summer, and it was amazing! But outside the Randstad the ICE to Germany barely goes anywhere so to get on we first had to travel to Arnhem. With works around Arnhem recently I saw ICE trains in Eindhoven and Den Bosch and I think it would be really cool to have another ICE line that goes to Germany in a more southwards direction via one of those cities. That would bring the international trains a lot closer for a lot of people.
@@mennoltvanalten7260 The usual ICE connection to Germany (Amsterdam-Utrecht- Arnhem- Germany) is not a high speed line. On other border crossings Venlo and Simpelveld in Zuid.- Limburg there is no connection to any high speed lines in Germany. The majority of International trains to Germany use the Arnhem connection, the other connections are mostly local trains and freight.
I'm late to this one again as it's been a busy week but thanks for the vid. I love watching these as I learn a lot about the railways of the world. They give me an insight into other rail systems and also make me want to visit the country lol. Although I've always wanted to go to the Netherlands, this makes me want to use their rail network. Keep up the great work😊👍
Fun fact maybe, in the Netherlands on NPO2 there is a show called Rail Away, about rail transport in diverse places. Really an amazing series to watch if you also like this kind of video's.
welke tijd prc
with such incredible railway system Netherlands are like a big city.. wow
if only my country had a rail network like this
What is your country?
@@RailwaysExplained Slovakia.
The trains here are almost constantly delayed, 20 minute delays are the norm, occasionally up to an hour. Even without the delay, it's really slow. For example, it takes 1h43 to travel 130 kms (avg speed 77 km/h), not sure how it compares to other countries, but seems pretty slow to me, considering that it is not a short, regional line but a line running across the entire country, connecting the two largest cities.
On the other side, the tickets are quite cheap. For that 130 km trip it's 6 euros which is really cheap, and additionally, children under 15, students, and the elderly travel completely free by train.
And that might be the reason why the rail infrastructure is in a neglected condition, it's being underfunded by the state, and the consumer.
To be fair the prices that the ask in the Netherlands for going by train are absurd. It is more affordable to go anywhere with a Hummer than going there by train. Yes, even with the price of 2 EUR per liter of benzine.
This is what happens when you have a state-owned company managed as a private one!