Northern Netherlands could be vital European rail link
With new and improved railway connections, the Northern Netherlands can fulfill an important linking function in Europe and close a gap in the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). This appears from a report published by the German-Swiss research bureau Prognos.
A better railway link would close the current gap in the TEN-T network between Amsterdam, the Northern Netherlands and Hamburg in Northern Germany. By re-examining the Northern Netherlands in the context of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), it would be possible to bypass the usual busy railway node of Hannover on Dutch-German routes. It could also relieve the Oldenzaal–Bad Bentheim border crossing, which is used by over 5000 trains a year.
Better rail connections in the north could also lead to faster routes to Scandinavia. The Lelylijn, a proposed new railway line between the center of the Netherlands and the Northern provinces Friesland and Groningen, was taken into account by the researchers.
Major trading partner
The researchers point out that the Netherlands is one of the three largest trade partners for both Denmark and Norway. Trade with Sweden is also on the rise. According to the report, train traffic on the Roerdam-Coevorden-Malmö rail corridor is proof that there is still a lot of potential for rail freight transport to and from Scandinavia.
The Northern Netherlands is not only situated between the Randstad, the conurbation in the central-western Netherlands consisting primarily of the four largest Dutch cities, and the Hamburg-Bremen metropolitan region, but could also be a connecting factor between the Rhine-Scheldt-Delta on the one hand and the Jade-Weser-Elbe-Delta on the other. A rail connection between the ports of Harlingen, Eemshaven, Delfzijl, Wilhelmshaven, Bremerhaven and Hamburg would also be recommended from an economic point of view.
Replacing flights
For passenger transport, too, there is still a lot to be won in the north of the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia. For example, rail connections could supplement and eventually largely replace a lot of short-haul flights, such as those from Amsterdam to Bremen and Copenhagen.
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A missing link in terms of TEN-t network in the Northern railway connections is the interest of railway-connections between the Amsterdam -‘IJmond’ seaports, Den Helder, Harlingen and Groningen seaports. This means: a coastal railway-link between ARA-area Amsterdam-IJmouth,
via ‘Afsluitdijk’, at Harlingen to connect with the ‘Wunderlinie’, an existing 150 jear old rail link betweeen Harlingen-Port and Bremen (St Petersburg). The ‘Hanze-Lely’ route …is the death knell for the Wunderlinie