After 50 years with the Museum Steam Tram, Cees Pols continues whistling: “Until I can’t anymore”

Pols has been a volunteer for over 50 years. An insane period that he cannot simply summarize in half an hour. As a 17-year-old boy, living in Uithoorn, he inherited his love for trains from his uncle, the signal box keeper at Hoorn station at the time. “‘As a 4-year-old you were already staring at the tram with your mouth open,’ my mother always said to me. So I don’t know any better.”

Spending the night with his uncle was no exception for him. “Then I would wander around the station. When I saw a booklet from the Museum Steam Tram – it was still called something else then – my mother said: ‘Go and have a look’. She thought it was about time I spent some time outside the home as a teenager. was going to do.”

And so it went. With 6.50 guilders pocket money, he traveled from Uithoorn by bus to Amsterdam, to take the train again to Hoorn. Gone was the pocket money. But that didn’t matter what was in front of it. “In November 1971, on a Saturday, I came there. I met an acquaintance of my uncle, who reacted enthusiastically after which I got an overall pressed into my hands.”

From stoker to chief conductor

Every Saturday he travels from Uithoorn to Hoorn. In the summer months he becomes a stoker on the steam tram. In winter it was mainly work in the work shed. “It was still very amateurish then, but we didn’t know any better.”

When Pols got married in 1979, he came to live in Nibbixwoud. That is still his village. “At a certain point there were a shortage of chief conductors. Then I took a course at the NS. Sworn in by the subdistrict court in Hoorn, I then became chief conductor.”

Parallel to this, Pols’ career runs at the customs at Schiphol. Where he has served faithfully for 42 years. “I worked 7 nights in a row, that’s not even allowed anymore, but then it happened. When I came out of the night shift on Thursday, I didn’t go to bed but to the steam tram to drive. That’s how I got back into my sleep rhythm. It has always been a common thread in my life.”

He has not only made countless journeys on the Hoorn-Medemblik route. He also went to Alkmaar for the Alkmaar Relief, Utrecht, Amsterdam and even the home base Uithoorn in the 1980s with Bello. “I never kept track of how many rides it has been,” he says with a laugh.

Anniversary within an anniversary

In this way, it also arrives at stations where the steam tram normally does not stop. “We picked up a family in Abbekerk who was getting married. We cut the wedding cake in the tram. That was a beautiful day. When they were married for 25 years, they did it again. And I was there again.”

Because of all those journeys, he ends up on many a snapshot of the steam tram passengers. “I stand on many a Japanese mantelpiece”, Pols jokes. Before corona, many groups of Asians came to the electric tram. “Japan, Korea and later also China. They came in large numbers every year.”

Not only the tulip fields were the main attraction in the spring. “I myself am 1.96 meters and with a fine mustache. They all thought that was very special. On such a day I was photographed at least a hundred times,” he says with a laugh. There is even a Japanese postcard on the doormat. “There I was, in the photo with a colleague. I was never able to read the map, only the address was in Dutch.”

Bol.com of the 1930s

How do you stay motivated as a volunteer for 50 years? “People’s amazement,” says Pols. “You come into contact with people who are experiencing it for the first time. They look at you like ‘what is happening here now?”. He mentions the stop in Wognum as an example. “That station is completely decorated in 1926. Then you stand in the goods shed and I tell the story that this was the bol.com of that time. From a grocer who needs a barrel of straw, he would come from somewhere by train Brabant from a sugar factory, deliver a barrel of straw to Wognum. That’s how it went back then.”

Telling about how things used to be – and that this is not so obvious – Pols attaches great value to. “Telling stories to the youth. But you also talk to people who have experienced it themselves, I also appreciate that recognition.”

Last weekend, Pols was put in the spotlight with other jubilees. They were given a special anniversary tour and of course traveled by steam tram to Medemblik. “We had lunch at the Bakery Museum and had a tour behind the scenes. In an extra tram we drove back to Hoorn with a drink,” says director René van den Broeke. He is proud that many have been working for decades. “And the number of golden anniversaries is still increasing.”

Whether the diamond anniversary is also reserved for Cees? “There have been people in their eighties who were still on the tram. I said: remember, if you see that I can no longer work safely, you should tell me.”

There is no mandatory age to stop. “If something happens, a collision, or someone falls in the tram, you have to be able to act.” But deep down, Pols knows. “I would keep going until I couldn’t anymore, until I went to the steam tram with a walker.”