Commuters on the busiest train route in the Netherlands, from Utrecht to Amsterdam, now know it by heart: it departs from track 5 or 7. However, these two tracks are separated by one wide platform, over which track 6 secretly runs over or under. Tracks 10, 13, 16 and 17 are also missing at Utrecht Central Station. Other stations have similar omissions. Is there a system behind this or is it complete randomness?
If you look closely at the signs at stations, you will see that there is no ‘platform’ in front of the numbers, but ‘track’. That’s right: the numbers refer to the track from which your train departs, not the platform where you are waiting. Some tracks are only intended for freight transport or only pass a station without stopping there, a so-called center track. At Amsterdam Central Station, for example, this applies to track 3, which does indeed run through the station (namely between tracks 2 and 4), but you will never see it on a sign.
Sounds logical, but what about the aforementioned track 6 at Utrecht Central Station? The track did exist, but was removed in the 1990s because it was “in the way” of an expansion, ProRail said. The same applies to track 13, which is not missing due to superstition, but was destroyed during the last renovation together with tracks 16 and 17 because platforms were widened. Removal of tracks is often a reason for certain songs to be missing.
Numbers that become obsolete will not be replaced. Of course you cannot place track 13 next to track 21, the highest number at Utrecht Central Station and the second highest in the whole of the Netherlands. The currently existing tracks will also not be renumbered chronologically. “That is very expensive: not only all travel information screens and signage have to be adjusted, but also all systems that are used to create timetables or IT that allows conductors and drivers to know where their train departs,” ProRail said. “Everyone in the railway world now knows where which track is located. This adjustment mainly creates confusion. Now nothing goes wrong, so it mainly seems to be a solution in search of a problem.”
Nijmegen has the highest number
Nijmegen stands alone with track 35. Such a high number may seem very new, but the track has been there since the beginning of the twentieth century. There is now an ROC next to the station, but the warehouse of Van Gend & Loos used to be located here, which later became part of DHL. There were numerous freight tracks here, all of which had to have different numbers than the tracks over which passenger trains arrived. However, track 35 still exists and is currently used for local trains to Venlo and Venray.
For five years, Eindhoven Central was just below that. When this station was thoroughly renovated between 2013 and 2018, the sprinters heading to Tilburg had to temporarily depart via a different track. That became track 34, an old ‘postal track’ that was once used by the PTT for mail transport – an activity that has been a thing of the past for several decades. A temporary platform was constructed for this purpose, which was removed after completion of the renovation. The fact that Breda does not have track 1 has the same reason, although this postal track has now also been removed in its entirety. Unlike France and the United Kingdom, Dutch train stations have no track or platform 0.
It seems illogical and potentially confusing to the traveler to indicate tracks instead of platforms, but in practice it causes few misunderstandings, apart from some raised eyebrows about missing and striking numbers. Poland proves that with more information you can actually create more ambiguity. There, the larger train stations such as Krakow, Warsaw or Wroclaw number both the platforms and the tracks. This way you can see on the screen that you should be on platform 2, track 4, for example. Anyone who is unfamiliar with this system and is in a hurry can easily walk onto platform 4 and miss his or her train or, worse, head to a different destination than planned.
Then track 35, which is adjacent to track 4, is not too bad.
