Farewell to the Benelux IC Service Part One.

This and the next two photos have been on my photostream for a while. By a little "manipulation" I am able to group them together and push them to the top of the stream. The prime reason is a little celebration of one important European rail service which disappears from 9 December 2012. The service in question is the hourly InterCity route between Amsterdam and Brussels via Roosendaal. Running on both networks as part of the regular interval services, trains were useful for both domestic and cross border traffic. Within the Netherlands and Belgium, of course, other trains ran and will continue to do so after 9 December 2012.

The prime reason for the withdrawal is the expansion of services on the recently built high speed lines. For a few years, Thalys services from Paris via Brussels through to Amsterdam have used the line and speeded up the service from around 3 hours to under two. Despite a delayed start, on 9 December 2012 more services operated by Fyra (joint owned by NShispeed and Belgian Railways) will run. The decision to discontinue the IC services was made some while back, which has not been met too well with regular travellers on the route. Faster trains may well mean a quicker journey from say Brussels to Amsterdam, but peak fares are higher, the high speed train misses out many stops (including Den Haag) . So here we have three photos showing the IC service over the years. Unfortunately I am not able to include the original electric worked services which started back in the 1950s being worked originally by NS "Hondekop" EMUs.

Seen here is the first of the locomotive push-pull operated services. These were introduced around 1973 and were powered by dual voltage Belgian Railways class 25/5 locomotives. Class 25/5 locomotives were in fact rebuilt from single voltage class 25 locomotives dating back to 1960. The rolling stock used was Dutch, being classified as Plan W. Normal formation was the locomotive at the Brussels end. After the reversal at Antwerpen Centraal the locomotive would be at the Amsterdam end.