Train Cab Ride NL / Amsterdam – Haarlem – Leiden – Den Haag / VIRM intercity / Jan 2018

Train Driver’s View on the intercity service from Amsterdam Central Station to Den Haag Central Station (The Hague). Today we get to run 10 carriages of VIRM creating a 267 meters long double decks train. The weather is cloudy with a change of rain every now and then.

It’s 14.49 and we depart perfectly on time from our starting station, Amsterdam Central. At our departure you can see the sprinter service from Haarlem arriving at our left side and the sprinter service from Schiphol arriving on our right side. Also a little later the intercity service from Alkmaar arriving in Amsterdam Central Station.

The speeds on our way to our first stop are separated in 40 – 60 – 80 – 130km/h. And then there’s our first stop: Amsterdam Sloterdijk. All passenger train coming from Amsterdam in the direction Haarlem and in the direction Zaandam will stop here. There are also tracks upstairs for the trains to Schiphol. At these platforms only the sprinter services will stop for boarding.

After we departed from Sloterdijk there’s a Intercity Direct train coming towards Amsterdam. This is a train without passengers. I don’t know why it took this route, but that could be cause of disruptions on the normal route. We accelerate to 130km/h and maintain that speed until we pass by Halfweg-Zwanenburg. From that point on we let the weight of the train do the rest of the hard work. With this style of driving VIRM uses about 2.5kWh/km. And don’t forget about the fact that Dutch electric trains all run on 100% wind power!

Just after we’ve departed from Sloterdijk I make a call to our technical support to let them know one of my headlight is not working when I use the normal lights. During this ride we dim the lights to make sure all three lights on the front of the train.

We arrive perfectly on time in Haarlem and this will go on like this for the rest of the route. After Haarlem we make a planned stop on a smaller station Heemstede-Aerdenhout and then we drive all the way to Leiden without making any other stops. The maximum speed as soon as we’ve departed from Haarlem is 140km/h until we approach Leiden Central Station. In Leiden we make a stop of four minutes and then make the final drive to our final stop Den Haag Centraal (The Hague Central Station).

If you have any question about the route, please let me know. I wish you all a very good weekend. Cheers!

Explanation speed limits:
ATB Track Speed: Max ATB speed given to the train from the track.
Vmax: Max speed for that particular part of the track.
Vlimit: Max speed given by light signals or temporary speed limits on the tracks.

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