NL passenger rail to suffer amid 80 weeks of work in Germany

Passengers heading to Germany from the Netherlands are set to suffer amid the start of long-term rail works in Germany along the so-called “Holland Line”, the route that connects Hannover with the Dutch border near Bad Bentheim. In fact, for 80 weeks, the line will be subject to closures and cuts, with the Betuwe route expected to pick up much of the slack of the important freight line. That means juggling much higher capacity, and for Dutch rail operator NS, there are three trains set to be affected by the shuttering of the German track. 

This month, the 80-week line works between the Netherlands and Germany will officially start. DB InfraGO will be building a third track between Emmerich and Oberhausen near the border along the so-called Holland line. Initially, it was thought that the nearby Betuwe line, crucial for Dutch rail freight, would close for 80 weeks and that all freight traffic would have to go along the Brabant line instead. Now, it turns out that it may not be that bad after all. The route will only be completely closed for 20 weeks.

The 80-week period will, in principle, last 80 weeks and runs roughly from this month to May 2026. Of those 80 weeks, a single track in Germany can be used for 60 weeks and therefore the Betuwe line can also be used, albeit to a slightly lesser extent than usual. The German railways will be completely out of service for the remaining 20 weeks, during which time the Betuwe line, which connects Europe’s largest port, Rotterdam, with Germany’s industrial heartland, cannot be used at all. So what does that mean for Dutch passengers?

What does this mean for Dutch passenger rail?

“We will have to look at it from time to time,” said spokesperson Anita Middelkoop. “In any case, it is now the case that the Nightjets from Amsterdam towards Vienna/Innsbruck and towards Zurich are operating with a modified timetable throughout 2025. They will also not run via Arnhem during that period. The Nightjet to Vienna/Innsbruck will stop at Deventer and then run via Hengelo, but will not stop there, and the Nightjet to Zurich will run via Eindhoven and Venlo, with a stop in Eindhoven.”

Then there is the ICE to Frankfurt. It does not currently run via Arnhem, but from 15 December it will, except when the Holland line is completely closed. Then the train will enter Germany via Venlo. The train stops in Mönchengladbach and there, passengers can transfer to trains to Düsseldorf, Köln or Frankfurt. The IC to Berlin is not affected by the works on the Hollandstrecke, as it will run via the Bentheim route anyway, past Hengelo.

An hour and a half longer

Then there are the local trains from Arnhem to Düsseldorf, the RE 19, for which, during the periods when the Hollandstrecke is closed, Deutsche Bahn is operating buses. That bus runs from Arnhem via Zevenaar, Elten and Emmerik to Oberhausen with only one stop in Wesel. In Oberhausen, the train towards Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof (HBF) is waiting again. Travellers do need a long haul for this: while the train already takes 1 hour and 50 minutes on the Arnhem-Düsseldorf route, by bus the trip takes 3 hours and 18 minutes. From Zevenaar, the journey takes almost three hours and from Emmerik just under two and a half hours.

The only alternatives during the complete closures to get to Germany by train are by ICE via Venlo, by RE 18 (Maastricht – Heerlen – Aachen Hbf.) via Herzogenrath, by RB 51 (Enschede-Dortmund) or RB 64 (Enschede-Münster) via Gronau or by RB 61 (Hengelo-Bielefeld) or Intercity Berlin via Bad Bentheim.

This article originally appeared in RailTech’s sister publication, SpoorPro.nl

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