NS’s newest Intercity will run between Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Breda
People who travel by train between Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Breda will get the first of the newest intercity of the Dutch Railways. This ICNG will be equipped with WiFi, sockets, comfortable seats and USB connections. The newest showpiece of the NS will be tested in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Breda in the first half of this year.
After that, the ICNG will also share the high-speed line between people transport in The Hague, Rotterdam and Eindhoven. Step by step, the Amsterdam-Brussels and Rotterdam-Leeuwarden-Groningen routes will also be addressed. INCG stands for InterCity New Generation
According to the NS, the modern trainsets are an improvement on their predecessors in various situations. The ICNG moves at a high speed (200 kilometers per hour) with improved accessibility, it seems assumed.
Vehicle officially approved
Commissioning came a step closer on Friday, now that the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) has officially approved it for use on the Dutch railways. Before a train is allowed to run in the Netherlands, the train manufacturer must first carry out admission tests. After extensive testing at home and abroad, the ICNG has now been officially approved. The train is based on the Coradia concept of the French train manufacturer Alstom. More than 2400 trains of this concept are already running in several countries.
Maarten Bakker, who is responsible for the introduction within NS, expects a lot from the test phase: “It is important, because with travelers in the timetable you can really see how the train performs in practice and do further precision.”
Alstom develops and builds 99 fast Intercity trains for NS, with a total of 33,000 seats. Twenty of these Intercity trains are also suitable for the Belgian rail network. In this way, the connection to Brussels can be further improved, a long-cherished wish of people who want to go south by train. The project has been delayed due to several factors.