Virtual Railfan Tour - Thursday - Amsterdam

Amsterdam Centraal station

We are now heading towards Hamburg to take a look at the large model railway there.
Paul has provided these notes of a convenient stopping off place on our journey.

Amsterdam is a convenient place to stop when traveling into Europe since Eurostar services now run direct between London and Amsterdam. Amsterdam Centraal station is a busy passenger station which  opened in 1889. The large cast iron trainshed was manufactured in Derby in the UK.
Most trains are in the bright yellow and blue livery of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) Dutch national railways but DB trains run connections into Germany, while Eurostars run services to London, and purple Thalys TGVs run to Paris.
Outside the station there is an extensive streetcar network running along the streets and canals of this city.

Train shed in Amsterdam Centraal

NS ICM train in Amsterdam Centraal. These trains date back to the 1980s and have a raised cab.

NS Bombardier BR 186 TRAXX on a passenger train

TRAXX locomotive

Dutch Class 1700 locomotive in Amsterdam. These locomotives date back to the 1990s. They have the look of the French nez cassee front

Class 1700 builders plate

Dutch VIRM double deck EMU leaving Amsterdam Centraal

Trackwork at Amsterdam Centraal - lots of double slip switches

There is fairly complex trackwork within the trainshed.

E320 Eurostar set just arrived at Amsterdam. When this picture was taken in 2018, Eurostars couldn't pick up passengers in the Netherlands and had to run back part way empty. Customs procedure are now in place to allow Amsterdam London services.

German DB loco hauled passenger train connecting Amsterdam to Berlin.

Carvings on the entrance to Amsterdam Centraal

Canals near the station


Central street in Amsterdam with delineation between transit, cars, cyclists, and pedestrians.

Crowds in the streets of central Amsterdam
Trams near the station


Dutch Passenger Trains in Central Amsterdam.




Video taken on first train between London and Amsterdam

Video of Amsterdam trams

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Railfan Tour of Switzerland - Wednesday - Zurich Hauptbahnhof Part One

Image
Zurich Hauptbahnhof  Paul has prepared some extensive notes and photos of the Zurich Hauptbahnhof.  This will be in several parts.  The busiest station in Switzerland is Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich HB) which is used primarily by the SBB. It has 26 tracks serving almost 3000 trains daily and it is one of the busiest stations in the world. It was built in the 1870s and is a main shopping destination as well as a transport hub. There are three levels for platforms and the "Shopville" shopping plaza.  The river Sihl river passes right through the station with platforms passing above and below the river. This shows the general layout of the station with the surrounding tram tracks shown in purple Tracks 3 to 18 are terminal tracks located at ground level, served by two side platforms and seven island platforms. These are used by long-distance trains from throughout Switzerland, and by international trains. Tracks 21 and 22 are underground terminal tracks, served by a sing...
Read more

Coming Home - Wrap Up - Sunday 15 Setember 2024

Image
This video, by Noel Wyler,  shows what we have just missed. Last Saturday (14 September) the Oensingen Balsthal  Railway organized an event to commemorate 60 years of the Re 4/4 locomotives. They brought together 24 of them and ran them as one train. Paul and I flew home on KLM from Schiphol Airport. We took a train from Den Haag directly to the airport. The trip back was marred by a couple with a young boy who was obviously teething. He cried almost continuously for the full six hours. I found I could tune him out when I dug deep into the KLM sound system and found a treasure trove of classical music. Bach violin concertos, Mozart piano concerto No. 23, Beethoven symphonies, Schuman etc. We survived the stupidities at the entrance of the Montreal airport and caught the KLM bus back to Ottawa where we arrived precisely on time. A good ending to a wonderful, tremendous, trip  
Read more

Travel Basel to Den Haag - Wednesday 11 September

Image
  A Dutch speciality - pancake with cheese, mushrooms and bacon. This was the only picture I took today - after we had finally arrived at Den Haag. We went early to the station at Basel  to check on our train to Dusseldorf only to find out it had been cancelled. A visit to the SBB ticket office revealed that the train hadn't actually been cancelled but was starting today from Karlsruhe. They found a connecting train leaving a little earlier which we took. This became progressively later and later so that it arrived at Karlsruhe just as the connection was about to pull out. A frantic dash across the platform and we were able to claim our seats. The journey to Dusseldorf was peculiar, There were periods when the train went fast (up to almost 200 kmph) and other periods when it dawdled. It progressively lost time except that it arrived at its final destination, Dusseldorf, eleven minutes early. (An injudicious use of recovery time in the schedule?) Dusseldorf gave us an opportuni...
Read more