Dutch Discovery Weekend

Todays Railways
Saturday/Sunday 2nd/3rd October 1999

Simon Bennett describes a long weekend over in Belgium and Holland which includes a write-up of the Todays Railways tours of 2nd and 3rd October.

For several years I have taken various opportunities to sample the railways of Belgium and having become reasonably knowledgable about Belgian Railways(SNCB/NMBS) I was starting to look to other countries to further broaden my knowledge. Some of my friends had been travelling over to Holland for a number of years and had come back with tales of great days out by train, so when I saw an advertisement for a trip to Holland, organised by Today's Railways magazine, I took the opportunity to book on the trip and find out for myself what all the fuss was about. I already knew that a combined rail ticket covering Belgium, Holland & Luxembourg existed and during my planning for this trip I thought I would take the opportunity of a day in Belgium,either side of the Dutch tour, using the Benelux Tourrail ticket at a reasonably priced 6590BEF (approx.£110) for 5 days first class travel in the 3 Benelux countries. I flew to Brussels from Manchester on the delayed BA1620 17.00 flight on Thursday 30/09/99 and made my way to my overnight stop in Ghent. On the way to Ghent I travelled on IC542,the 19.05 Eupen to Oostende, which was hauled by one of SNCB's new class 13 locomotives, no.1312. This was my first loco from this new class and I was very impressed with the loco's acceleration and handling of our 11 coach train. The plan for Friday 01/10/99 was to sample a couple of class 51 diesels and as many "old"electric's,of classes 22/23/25 & 26 as possible whilst also taking in a few kilometres of required track. The alarm rang at 04.15 on Friday morning and I left my hotel to cover the 05.10 service to Geraardsbergen as far as Gontrode to put me onto the 04.57 Geraardsbergen to Ghent which is hauled by a class 51 diesel. On this day it was 5109 which was not required but I made my way back to Ghent on this as I then planned to cover the morning P-trains from Sint Niklaas to Antwerp and Mechelen. These two services are usually hauled by class 25 electrics and today was no exception with 2506 taken to Puurs and 2501 forward then to Mechelen. From here I made my way to Namur for the 10.05 International train to Paris and having had 2302 to Charleroi Sud I then made my way back to Mechelen to cover the services to Kortrijk as these can occaisinally turn up class 22 electrics. One turn was indeed covered by a 22 and 2212 was duly sampled before heading for Brussels and the rush hour pandemonium. During the rush hour I covered 4 class 22,s and 3 class 23's before heading to Ghent via Dendermonde to meet Gary Thornton on the 19.16 service to Eeklo. We travelled as far as Ghent Dampoort before Gary returned to Ghent Sint Pieters and I travelled forward from Ghent to Antwerp to connect with my train to Rotterdam. All went according to plan with arrival in Rotterdam Central at 21.39 to catch a local service to Rotterdam Blaak station where I would meet up with some friends for a few beers before retiring to our handily placed hotel. I thought I had done well spending the day in Belgium before the tour but I was amazed to find three other tour participants on the local service who had travelled overnight from Portugal for the tour. Now that is impressive!

Our hotel for the two nights in Holland was the Savoy hotel close to Rotterdam Blaak station. The rooms were comfortable and the hotel offered an air of quiet efficiency. On Saturday morning the hotel staff coped admirably with serving 80 people breakfast at 7.15 before we all set off for the railtour which was to take us to Hengelo for an open day which was being held in the yard there and other associated activities. The railtour was
organised in conjunction with a group of Dutch enthusiasts called Werkgroep 1501. The group are custodians of former British Rail electric locomotive 27003 (NS 1501) which was exported to Holland to work on frontline Inter-City services, following work on the Manchester to Sheffield"Woodhead"route. The tour was due to be hauled by 1501 and Werkgroep 1501's other preserved former Dutch mainline engine 1211 but unfortunately 1501 failed it's mainline certification and so was unable to perform on the day. Instead of 1501 the tour organisers provided Benelux loco 1186 for the tour. These loco's are not rare for haulage as they can be seen everyday of the week plying between Brussels and Amsterdam on the hourly Benelux services. However what was rare was where we were going to be taking this Everyday engine. The class 11's are restricted exclusively to Brussels to Amsterdam services and are rarely seen off this route other than works visits or maintainence at their home depot of Merelbeke near Ghent.

The tour arrived at Rotterdam Blaak station on time at 8.28 and we boarded our train made up of NS couchette cars with an East German "Mitropa" buffet car. 1211 led from Rotterdam with our route taking us past the extensive complex of yards south of Rotterdam, known as Kiffhoek yard. In railway terms this complex of yards is very impressive. It was described to me as being like having Toton, Tees, Tyne, Carlisle Kingmoor and Wembley yards all on the same site and I began to understand what was meant as for mile after mile we travelled past the yard. At Dordrecht we headed East to our first photostop of the day at Geldermalsen where we spent 30 minutes photographing our train and watching the comings and goings of NS passenger trains through the station. NS run quite an intensive service with local and Inter-City trains connecting with each other at various hub stations. With few exceptions NS runs a seven day timetable with the same level of service at weekends as on Monday to Friday. Coupled with the even interval nature of the service it makes travel around Holland very easy. After our stop at Geldermalsen the tour travelled down the line to our next stop at 's-Hertogenbosch, only 15 minutes away from Geldermalsen, where we had another photo stop for 40 minutes. Apparently our Dutch cousins like to take photo's of trains and therefore railtours organised in Holland tend to have many photo stops to accomodate this. Quite a few of the British contingent commented that it would have been nice to have had fewer photo stops and to have arrived in Hengelo earlier however as the tour could not have run without the help of Werkgroep 1501, and the bookings that they had taken for the tour,then it was neccessary to meet the requirements of the Dutch tour participants. After reversal of our train at 's-Hertogenbosch, and now with 1186 leading,we headed off to Nijmegan where we were to have had another short photo stop. Thankfully this stop was omitted due to late running as we had found ourselves pathed behind a stopping train on this route when we should in fact have been ahead of it. We continued through Arnhem and Zutphen to our next scheduled reversal point of Deventer and now with 1211 leading we continued towards Hengelo via Almelo where we passed one of the special steam shuttles that was running between Almelo and Enschede as part of the Rail Fare.

Arrival in Hengelo was just about on time at 13.25 giving our party just under 4 hours to look around with our scheduled departure being 17.11. The set-up at the railfare was similar to open day events in the UK. The freight yard had been roped off and various locomotives had been lined up in the yard so that people could inspect them.What was different to the UK was that entry to the event was free and there was a steam shuttle service running the length of the yard right through the middle of the crowds of people who were walking around the exhibition. The only safety measure taken was a man walking in front of the shuttle telling people to clear the tracks. Also after arrival of our train at Hengelo,the locomotives which had brought us to the event were also placed on display in the yard again with just a man telling people to move out of the way whilst the locomotives moved through the yard to their designated display points. There were many different types of locomotive on display, from steam engines through to modern day electric and diesel locomotives. Of major interest to most enthusiasts that were there was the line up of three class 1200 locomotives. 1202/1252 and 1211 were all placed side by side so that photos could be taken of the locos. It was funny to hear the shouts of derision made by the photographers when some unfortunate soul walked out from between the locos staight into the camera shot (no different from the average UK open day then! - Gary). With so many people milling around the yard patience was definately called for if you wanted to get that "clean" shot of any of the locos on display. Many photographers took to hanging out of the cab doors and windows to get a better shot from other exhibits on
display. As well as locos from NS cargo, the Dutch railways freight company, there were also locomotives from private freight operator ACTS. This company operates freight trains from its base in Rotterdam and has purchased a number of former NS class 1200 locos as well as former SNCB class 62 diesel locos. The class 62's have been renumbered into 67XX series and 6702 was on display in the yard. After nearly 2 hours walking round and taking photo's we made our way back to Hengelo railway station where a number of sales stands had been set up selling all sorts of railway related items. From the UK Platform 5 Publishing had a stand selling books and magazines on many UK and European railway subjects. Also on display were a number of model railway layouts featuring various European railway scenes. With just over an hour to spare there was time to go and look at the town of Hengelo and,thanks to a sudden downpour,the opportunity to sample some beer in a local bar.

Just before 17.00 we returned to the station to see what for many proved to be the highlight of the afternoon.The platforms were thronged with people taking photographs of the locomotives from the display as they were made ready for return to their relevant depots. One after another locomotives came out of the yard and formed an orderly procession past the station giving ample chance to get a good clean shot of the locos. Some were being marshalled into trains to be taken back home and ACTS had a nice little cavalcade of 1252 & 1501 being lead by 6702. Eventually our train was made ready and arrived in the station with 1211 at the front. For some reason 1186 was not attached to the rear of our train and this sparked rumours of a replacement having been "fixed" for the return journey. As it was 1186 had been sent forward to Apeldoorn where our first photo stop of the return journey was to take place and when we arrived in Apeldoorn 1186 was lined up on the centre road next to 1211 for a photo call before being attached to the rear of the train for the journey to Utrecht. With a further photo stop at Amersfoort the train arrived in Utrecht in time to meet the overnight train to Vienna which was also made up of couchette stock led by an NS Reizigers class 1700 loco. Here we reversed and 1186 headed back to Rotterdam Centraal and Blaak stations where tour participants detrained and headed back to the hotel or over to the excellent Cambrinus bar. With a relatively early start for a Sunday most people were back in the hotel by midnight.

Haulages:

Timing details:(Booked times only as no actual running times were taken.)

6.45am Sunday morning and the alarm rang. Today was to be a private visit to the internal rail system of Hoogovens steel works. In order to get to Beverwijk to pick up our private train for the steel works we needed to catch the 8.58 service from Rotterdam Blaak, so breakfast for 80 was served at 7.45am. After breakfast some people headed off to the station to catch earlier trains as we were travelling by service train to Beverwijk. This gave some people the opportunity to score some more engines before boarding 1701 at the head of the 8.58 to Den Haag C.S. NS delivered us efficiently to Den Haag where we were to change trains for a semi fast service to Beverwijk formed of "dognose" unit no.508. Our arrival at Beverwijk was on time at 10.36 and we made our way across the platform to await our special train. We waited.And waited. Neil Webster, the tour organiser started to check various amounts of paper work and correspondence and confirmed that we were indeed at the right place at the right time. But, where was our train? Neil disappeared and returned a few moments later to advise that the train was on its way and had been delayed by engineering works on the steel works system. Panic over. Sure enough our train arrived headed by 350hp shunter no. 48 with "sik" loco 316 on the rear. By this time the weather had turned atrocious with heavy rain and a thunder storm for good measure. No. 48 was run round the train and off we set on our steel works tour. The train was quite interesting in that it was made up of 6 coaches including a buffet car serving tea, coffee and light refreshments. Bearing in mind that we had been stood in the cold at Beverwijk for over half an hour, the buffet car was beseiged by people looking for a warming drink. The train took us into the main reception yards where NS locos drop off their trains to be taken over by members of the steel works internal fleet. This fleet is quite sizeable with examples of both diesel elctric and diesel hydraulic locos to be found. They are also quite powerfull as they need to haul long trains of finished steel around the complex as well as 400tonne "torpedos"loaded with molten iron for the finishing process. After reversal in the main reception yard we passed the site of the engineering works and started the tour proper. One of the highlights for many people was visiting the depot of the preservation group which operates in the steel works. Here people were allowed to photograph the steam locos in the shed but I decided to remain on the train, in the dry, and watch the day to day operations of the steel works going on around me. The tour resumed with a circulour route back to the main yards and with time pressing it became obvious that we may miss our intended train back to Den Haag. Neil started to make alternative arrangements to get people back to Rotterdam and on to Hook of Holland for the ferry back to England but as it transpired these alternative arrangements were not needed as our special train arrived back in Beverwijk with a few minutes to spare before the train to Den Haag arrived.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank a long list of people who made us all very welcome during our two days in Holland. Firstly thanks must go to Neil Webster and all at Platform Five Publishing who made the trip possible. A further vote of thanks to Neil for his tireless efforts to make sure that everyone on the trains knew what was happening (the loud haler proved very usefull!). Thanks to Werkgroep 1501 for the organisation of the Black Home railtour on the Saturday and their efficient and friendly service on board the train. Thanks also to the people behind the scenes at Hoogovens Excursietrein for providing the tour around Hoogovens steel works on the Sunday.

Verdict: A well organised,well run two day visit. The hotel was comfortable and handily placed for the station. The number of photo stops was too many for the British contingent who would have preferred to get to Hengelo and back to Rotterdam earlier to make more of the saturday evening. I certainly would not hesitate to travel on any future Todays Railways organised trips.

Currently there are two routes by which you can travel between Belgium & Holland, and so as not to waste an opportunity I had decided to make my way back to Belgium via the second route. I had travelled out via Antwerp and Roosendaal to Rotterdam on Friday night and had discovered that if I left the main party at Haarlem I could catch a through train to Maastricht and connect with a service to Liege to get me back into Belgium. So, approaching Haarlem I said my goodbyes to my travelling companions of the last few days and made my way onto the 14.10 service from Haarlem to Maastricht. The journey of about 146miles was interesting to compare to a journey of a similar distance in the UK. I was surprised to find that there was no buffet car on this service as an equivalent service provided by an Inter-City operator in Great Britain would certainly have provided hot snacks over such a journey length. Instead there was a trolley service provided but this left the train at Eindhoven when there was still some 70 minutes of our journey left. Taking into account the distance of 146 miles and the fact that we were being hauled by an electric loco, a journey time of 3 hours was also poor by comparison to UK standards. If you take a journey from London Euston to Crewe, making 5 stops on the way, you will still cover the 158 miles in just over 2hours.

Another reason for travelling back via Liege was that I was to meet Gary Thornton in Leuven and as there was no time penalty for making this extended journey it made common sense to cover the second route to Belgium. Incidently, when the new diesel multiple units currently being built for SNCB enter service onto the Neerpelt route from Antwerp, I understand that a third border crossing will become available via Weert, as all Antwerp to Neerpelt services will be extended over the currently freight only route from Neerpelt to Weert (actually I heard every second service will be extended - Gary). As it happened Gary turned up considerably earlier than I thought. Having sent a text message to him earlier in the day telling him of my route to Leuven he had decided to meet up with me in Liege. In fact he joined the local Maastricht to Liege service at Bressoux the last station before Liege, and we then changed to the Inter-City service on to Leuven. After a few hours in the Domus brew pub, recounting tails of our various experiences over the weekend we both joined an Oostende bound service. Gary alighted in Brussels and I carried on to the Hotel Trianon 2 in Ghent where I was spending Sunday night.

Oh my God it's early!!! 04.00 Monday morning and the alarm is ringing. It was my plan to cover some more of the class 25 hauled P-trains and to do this I needed to cover the routes into Antwerp from the east.Catching the 04.51 service to Brussels I changed into an early service from Mons to Vise, which got me to Leuven in time to make a connection to Aarschot. Here the plan was to cover the 06.54 service to Antwerp, changing at Liere for a train to Herentals before doubling back to Lier and changing again into the 07.54 Aarschot to Antwerp and breakfast. This would cover 3 class 25 turns and a diesel hauled service to Neerpelt. As it happens I could have travelled on another class 25 from Lier to the station one back from Herentals as I discovered that the 07.25 Antwerp to Turnhout is also 25 hauled. Unfortunately for me the train from Herentals back to Lier was running late and I missed the 07.54 service to Antwerp, so I stayed on the service I was on and made my way to Antwerp to have a quick bite of breakfast. By now 4 days of continental travelling were starting to get to me and I decided to take the first train that arrived in Antwerp with a required engine. This meant that I then spent the next few hours spinning around between Antwerp and Mechelen and having seen 6201 at Ghent earlier that morning I had decided to make a move to cover the first of the class on a later service from Ghent to Ronse. Travelling via Brussels I arrived in Ghent with plenty of time to spare for 6201 which duly arrived to for the 13.00 service to Ronse. I was just about to board this train when I noticed that the 12.52 service to Mechelen was hauled by class 22 electric 2230. I decided to make aleap for this train instead thinking that I could cover 6201 later and so set off toward Mechelen. The 12.28 service from Mechelen to Kortrijk was due to pass my train between Ghent and Wetteren so I kept my eyes open, curious as to what it might be. Class 22 2206 zipped past on this service so I decided to give 6201 a miss and make my way to Dendermonde to change trains for a run back to Deinze to wait for 2206 on its return from Kortrijk. This covered I then made my way back to Brussels and on to Leuven again to cover the 16.20 P-train to Ghent which produced class 25 electric 2508 and having reached Mechelen I travelled back to Brussels to make a few moves in the rush hour before travelling to the airport for the 20.05 flight back to Manchester.

Once again I crammed as much as possible into a four day trip abroad, but after all its very rare that the opportunity arises to spend time on the railways of two different countries over the course of the weekend. I am now planning the next trip which will hopefully coincide with ADL's re-run of the Banana Train from Antwerp to Cologne but that's not untill the next millenium!!!!!

Haulage details:-

Thursday 30/09/99

Friday 01/10/99

Saturday 02/10/99

Woerkgroep 1501 & Todays Railways Black Home Railtour.

Sunday 03/10/99

Monday 04/10/99

Simon Bennett.

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