No trains will run between Meppel and Assen until 21 June due to maintenance work. Compared to the chaotic scenes last year, there was a serene calm at the stations on Thursday morning during rush hour.
ProRail is working again on the railway arch at Hoogeveen. This will be moved on both sides of the station, so that in the future intercity trains can race past Hoogeveen at 140 kilometers per hour. Now that is still 80 km/h.
The replacement bus transport, necessary because of the train congestion, seems to run smoothly and reasonably according to the adjusted timetable.
Relaxed
Meppel station, Thursday around 7:30 am. The traffic controllers and bus coordinators in yellow-green suits look relaxed. They answer travelers’ questions, point them to the right bus and have time for a joke.
,,Yes”, Nicolien (21) from Meppel agrees on her way to Groningen. ,,It is a completely different picture than last year, when it was chaos. It then took me hours to get to the destination. That was stressful.” Now she only has to wait about ten minutes for the coach of, in this case, the Betuwe Express.
Neighboring country
And so a variety of coach companies call at the stations. Even from the neighboring country. At Hoogeveen station, a large Papenburger Reisen bus turns towards the queue. “Gee,” says a boy who points out the German license plate to his comrade, “that’s right. toll we go up Urlaub .”
There are also few problems in Hoogeveen, although it is a bit busier with travelers here. Anyone who stays in the queue for a while will even hear some mild grumbling. ,,Two buses to Assen have already expired”, a boy talks to himself. He calls his employer, it turns out. ,,I will work a little longer otherwise”, he concludes.
‘Bus doesn’t always come like this’
Henk (52) from Hoogeveen also has to go to Assen, also for work. He is an account manager at a bank. Maintaining relationships, acquiring new customers, following market developments. They don’t get Henk out of the fold quickly. “Ah, you know that such a blockage with buses results in extra travel time,” he says. “So you have to calculate that. The van doesn’t always come like that, haha.”
When ProRail carried out the first part of the work last year, the situation was extreme, Henk admits. “I finally decided to work from home. There are limits, even for me.”
Accident
Two minutes later the coach pulls up. Henk gives a thumbs up from behind the window. Whether he will also return to Hoogeveen as smoothly remains to be seen. An accident, later in the morning, near Zuidhorn affected the detour route of train passengers between Zwolle and Groningen via Leeuwarden. But there, too, the delay was quickly resolved by the use of buses.