DanielB
Established Member
As it's becoming very likely that the current COVID-guidelines in The Netherlands will allow for an audience during the Dutch GP, NS has now published its special timetable for the Dutch GP weekend from 3-5 september.
Travelling by car to Zandvoort is severely discouraged this weekend, so as an alternative NS and ProRail have invested together to make a very impressive mass-capacity timetable possible. This involved for example not only building additional platforms, but also adding substations along the route to be able to provide sufficient power to the overhead lines.
What will happen this weekend is something that no-one tried before...
Trains from the directions Leiden and Alkmaar which would usually continue through to Amsterdam will terminate at the outer two platforms in Haarlem (1 and 8). By doing this a corridor from platforms 1 and 2 at Amsterdam Central, via platform 7/8 at Amsterdam Sloterdijk and 3/6 in Haarlem to platforms 1/2 at Zandvoort aan Zee is created, without any conflicting train traffic.
On this corridor a service with 12 trains per hour (every 5 minutes) will be offered, operated with 12 car SLT trains. This is enough to accomodate 7.920 seated passengers per hour (or a whopping 16.272 passengers/hour when including standing passengers).
All those trains will call at every station en-route, except Overveen which will be closed during these three days as it will be impossible to leave that station (as it's only accessible via a level crossing).
At Zandvoort aan Zee two platforms have been added so that each of the two tracks has a platform on both sides. The procedure will be that passengers disembark from one side of the train first, followed by the passengers wanting to get in entering from the other sides. All trains are also staffed with a driver on each end to speed up reversing to make most use out of the limited capacity (see the scheduled timetable for Zandvoort aan Zee)
The remainder of the country is also impacted by this logistic challenge. Some trains are rerouted to Amsterdam Central to get passengers to the Zandvoort-shuttles efficiently, but there will also be some cuts in frequencies elsewhere to free up the required staff.
Travelling by car to Zandvoort is severely discouraged this weekend, so as an alternative NS and ProRail have invested together to make a very impressive mass-capacity timetable possible. This involved for example not only building additional platforms, but also adding substations along the route to be able to provide sufficient power to the overhead lines.
What will happen this weekend is something that no-one tried before...
Trains from the directions Leiden and Alkmaar which would usually continue through to Amsterdam will terminate at the outer two platforms in Haarlem (1 and 8). By doing this a corridor from platforms 1 and 2 at Amsterdam Central, via platform 7/8 at Amsterdam Sloterdijk and 3/6 in Haarlem to platforms 1/2 at Zandvoort aan Zee is created, without any conflicting train traffic.
On this corridor a service with 12 trains per hour (every 5 minutes) will be offered, operated with 12 car SLT trains. This is enough to accomodate 7.920 seated passengers per hour (or a whopping 16.272 passengers/hour when including standing passengers).
All those trains will call at every station en-route, except Overveen which will be closed during these three days as it will be impossible to leave that station (as it's only accessible via a level crossing).
At Zandvoort aan Zee two platforms have been added so that each of the two tracks has a platform on both sides. The procedure will be that passengers disembark from one side of the train first, followed by the passengers wanting to get in entering from the other sides. All trains are also staffed with a driver on each end to speed up reversing to make most use out of the limited capacity (see the scheduled timetable for Zandvoort aan Zee)
The remainder of the country is also impacted by this logistic challenge. Some trains are rerouted to Amsterdam Central to get passengers to the Zandvoort-shuttles efficiently, but there will also be some cuts in frequencies elsewhere to free up the required staff.