TU Delft'22: discovering the NL's railway system

This was the first business-related trip I had since the outbreak of the COVID pandemic—but this was not the reason that led me to write this post. My misfortune is.

My trip to Delft went relatively smoothly: no significant issue arose during my (very first) journey from Feldkirch to ZRH.[a]Worthy of note, however, is an IT-related issue that occurred the day before, and which enabled me to find out how poorly-designed the SWISS website was (in terms of registering the results of COVID tests), which I had to troubleshoot by using some HTML tweaks… The flight was also went smoothly, and I enjoyed the evening walk from the Delft’s train station to my hotel. I also had a great time here, spending a wonderful evening with some faculty members of TU Delft after my guest lecture. The problems arose on the day of my departure.

To be fair, things “began moving” on the day before my departure: my flight was originally set to depart sometime at noon on May 4th, hence my plan was to wake up at 8am, enjoy a nice walk to the Delft’s train station, get to AMS sometime at 10am, and wait there for my flight. Things changed at 11:30pm on May 3rd. I receive an email informing me that my flight was canceled: as a consequence, I was automatically put onto the next flight at 3pm. All in all, it wasn’t a bad deal: it was quite late when I arrived at my hotel, and this change meant I could spend more time under the blankets—and, also, that I could do some sightseeing in Delft during the daylight.

And this is what I did. I got plenty of sleep, then got out and walked around Delft’s city centre, stopping for breakfast at a cozy bakery/café. The NL railway system offers plenty of options to reach AMS from Delft (all taking ~40m), and I was not in any hurry. At around 11am, I arrive at Delft’s train station, get a ticket for AMS, and hop on the first train. I had to change train somewhere in between (I think it was Leiden Central). I began relaxing.[b]I mean, at this point in time, my “traveling misfortune” had yet to manifest fully. What could possibly go wrong?

Eventually, the train arrives at The Hague HS—not the central station, the smaller one. After a while (say, 5 minutes) I notice that the train is not departing. I began looking around, confused; meeting other people’s gazes, they were also confused or surprised. Some start getting out of the train; some announcements from the loudspeaker say something in Dutch. After 10 more minutes (it was noon), the monitor shows that the train I was on had been canceled—but I had yet to reach Leiden central! Some other announcements say other things in Dutch; I ask some people around “Hey, I need to get to AMS Schiphol, what train do I need to take?” Most answers were not very informative. Eventually, I get ahold of an operator of the NL’s railway system, and ask him the same question. He says “There’s going to be a train going there which will arrive soon”. And it was true: a monitor showed a train which would reach AMS Schiphol that was going to arrive in a few minutes—great! Some people leave, and I hop onto the train, alongside other people in my same situation. Then I wait… 2, 3, 5 minutes—the train does not leave. After 10 minutes, the train I was on gets canceled again.

It was already 12:30, my flight was in 2:45 hours. Getting to AMS Schiphol from The Hague HS takes only 20 minutes, but the situation was getting more confusing after every minute. I took out my phone and began looking at the NL railway website. “What the heck was going on?”, I was wondering. I learnt that “Due to an accident in the Leiden-Amsterdam tracks, all trains going from The Hague to Amsterdam are canceled.”[c]To be 100% honest, I don’t remember the exact location of the accident nor the specific section that was affected—but for sure I could not reach AMS Schiphol from The Hague HS with the direct line. What?

I started to think some options. I take the first train that brings me to The Hague Central: my hope was getting a taxi to AMS from there. Unfortunately, by the time I reached The Hague Central (at 1pm or so), there was no taxi available that I could take (apparently, many had the same idea). Then, I decided to take a look at the NL’s railway website again. There must have been other ways to reach AMS by train—maybe by taking a longer route. And indeed there were: there is a different line that connects Rotterdam to AMS Schiphol. I hence get onto a train that was headed to Rotterdam—this was my only hope. Funnily enough, when I get onto the train, I ask one of the ticket inspectors “Hey, so there is an accident on the line to Amsterdam, right? If I go to Rotterdam and I take the intercity direct, I can reach AMS, right? I mean, that line is not affected by this issue, right?” I just wanted some confirmation that I was going to the right direction. The answer I got “I don’t know”. What? I was upset and could not accept such an answer “Apologies, but you should know. Is there a line that connects Rotterdam to AMS Schiphol, right?”, “Yes”, “Great, so the accident that caused this mess occurred in a different section, right?”, “Yes”, “So is it safe to assume that the line from Rotterdam to AMS is functional?” “Probably. I don’t know, check the website.” Meh. Thankfully, once I reached Rotterdam (at around 2pm), there was an Intercity Direct that was ready to leave towards AMS Schiphol. I hopped on it, and I arrived at the airport at 2:30pm or so. It was still “COVID-time”, so there weren’t many people traveling and I managed to arrive at my gate on time.

To summarise, I got on the train at 11am, and was supposed to reach AMS Schiphol sometime at noon. I arrived almost 150m later, after spending such time running around, trying to interpret the messages of the NL’s railway system, and more generally under a lot of stress.[d]At least the cake I ate in the morning was put to good use… Given that this was the first trip I had since my arrival in Liechtenstein, I was expecting something more relaxing… but, at the time, I did not know that this was only the beginning.