Traveling by train in The Netherlands

If you have a five-hour layover in Amsterdam, it's a great idea to go into the city! If you do a search, you'll find a way to buy your ticket-I forget where, but there's a website that will tell you step-by-step how to buy your train ticket form the machine cause it's all in Dutch (or you could go to the booth and pay a fee to get your ticket).

You have to be careful as to whether you buy a first class or second class ticket. The city is only a 17 minute ride from the airport, you can walk to Dam Square and see Dam church, and then walk around the Red Light District and look for hookers! It's legal there, but you can't take pictures.

Traveling by train in The Netherlands (aka Holland) is rather simple to do. Every station in the country has a touch screen ticket selling machine. These machines accept foreign bankcards with the Maestro-logo. Also Visa and MasterCard credit cards are accepted. Be aware not all of these machines accept coins (Euro’s). The machine can also be used to buy tickets to selected destinations in Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Germany. Note, on the web site you can find a demo of how to operate the machine (http://webdemo.ns.nl/).

There are at some stations still older type of machines which do accept cash money.

Besides the machines the bigger stations have counters to buy tickets. Smaller stations that don’t have a NS service and tickets counter; you can buy tickets at the Wizzl/Kiosk shops. Be aware in both cases, buying tickets from the counter will cost 50 Eurocents per ticket extra. So machines are cheaper.

Some prices (dated 2009) for the probably most used tickets, Day travel card whole network second class € 44.- for € 5.50 extra you can add on other means of public transport like buss, metro and trams. Single trip and return tickets, that depends on the travelled distance, two single trip tickets for the same route are more expensive then a return ticket.

Kids between 4 and 11 travel for € 2.- while accompanied by an adult (min. age 19). This so-called “rail runner” ticket is valid for the same route as the ticket for the accompanying adult.

There are various other possibilities, you might want to check the website for that or consult with the service personal. The URL of the Dutch Railroad Company: www.ns.nl (in Dutch and English).

For international tickets you can only get those at a number of big stations like, Amsterdam Central, Schiphol, The Hague, Rotterdam Central, Breda, Arnhem, Groningen, Maastricht, Eindhoven, Utrecht Central. The URL of the International train site: www.nshispeed.nl (in Dutch and English).

If you want to travel on high speed trains like ICE (direction Germany) or Thalys (direction Belgium, France) you need advance booking and reservation. If want to hop on a high speed train for travel within the Netherlands making use of a regular ticket, this is for Thalys impossible and on ICE there’s a surcharge on your regular ticket required.

Ok you bought your ticket, what now? What platform is my train? Look for the yellow timetables in each station. On top you will see the route of the train and what stations along the way. Located your station of destination there? Then look on the same board and look up the desired departing time. Once found that, you can read on the same line the platform number. As easy as that;) These boards show departing times only, so not arriving times.

On the platform itself you can see overhead screens. These screens display the first departing train from that particular platform. It also displays the platform number (in Dutch named: spoor) and the final destination of the train and all stops in between.

How do I know I’m in the right train? All trains have on the side a screen showing the final destination of the train. So before boarding compare the final destination showing on the screen at the platform with the final destination mentioned on the train. Still not sure? Well you can always ask the conductor in that case;)

Hopefully this review is of some use to you, you miss something or still have questions drop me a message…maybe I have the answer.