It’s one of those days again. First there is no and later hardly any train traffic between Meppel and Zwolle. To make matters worse, train traffic around Beilen also came to a standstill that same morning. As a result, train traffic to and from the North runs poorly. All NS trains to Drenthe, Groningen and Friesland have to pass through the bottleneck at Meppel.
“We are talking about 71 outages between Meppel and Zwolle from September to today. These are no longer incidents, that is structural. There are still no trains running between Zwolle and Meppel on average for nine hours a week. On Tuesday we go to the House of Representatives. to present a petition,” says Drenthe deputy Henk Jumelet. (CDA). It advocates an oh-so-desirable solution.
The provinces of Drenthe, Groningen and Friesland and the Zwolle Region are asking the House of Representatives to make the rest of the money available to make a fourth platform in Meppel possible. Of the 75 million needed, 35 million has already been promised by the cabinet.
The causes of train delays are numerous. Collisions, breaks in the overhead wires, now another break in a rail due to frost, copper thefts, broken trains, defective railway bridges and signal and switch failures, to name just a few. “These are partly due to force majeure, but it can no longer be sold to travelers,” said Jumelet on behalf of the three northern provinces and the Zwolle Region.
Collisions with trains and disruptions on the track occur throughout the country, but between Meppel and Zwolle they often immediately cause a major problem. That starts at Meppel Station. There are now three platform tracks there and all intercity trains and local trains to and from Groningen and Leeuwarden have to pass there. So if there is a problem there, things quickly get stuck there.
The widely used railway line between Meppel and Zwolle consists of two railway lines. There are fourteen level crossings and a few bridges. In the event of a malfunction or collision, train traffic comes to a standstill. There is no other way to travel to and from the north than via this stretch of track, so there is no alternative if trains cannot run there.
Only train travelers to Emmen are lucky. The railway line to Emmen already bends at Herfte – just outside Zwolle – at a grade-separated level and, moreover, the Herfte-Zwolle section is four-lane, so that more solutions are possible in the event of disruptions and defects. Moreover, all train types there have their own track and do not get in each other’s way.
Apart from the fact that the regional authorities believe that the bottleneck problems should be solved, there is another argument: more residents will be added. “The housing shortage is acute, the housing construction agreements have been completed and construction will be in full swing in the coming years. There are approximately 75,000 homes between Zwolle and Groningen/Leeuwarden. There is an urgent task to now guarantee the sustainable accessibility of these new homes,” the provinces write to the House of Representatives.
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