ProRail is once again putting a record amount in the maintenance of the railway

Despite all the delays, crowded spit trains and failing infrastructure on the high -speed line of the past year, rail manager ProRail 2024 sees as a successful year. Four of the five performance agreements with the government have been reached, thirty speed restrictions were lifted and substantial investments have been made.

« If the Consumers’ Association made a European comparison, we were the » Best Koop « , » explains financial director Mirjam van Velthuizen on Thursday, on the train from Roermond to Nijmegen. Trains in Switzerland run more punctually and cause less inconvenience, raises it herself, but « at much higher costs. » Switzerland spends more than 0.3 percent of its gross national product on rail infrastructure, the Netherlands about 0.2 percent, she adds.

If the Consumers’ Association made a European comparison, we were the ‘best buy’

ProRail will publish the annual report for 2024 this Friday. Last year, the rail manager spent 1.81 billion euros on maintenance and extensions of the track. That was 22 percent more than in 2023. Before 2025, another record budget was reserved: 1.85 billion euros. Large projects are planned around Amsterdam Central and in Leeuwarden and Amersfoort. Earlier this year the Eurostar returned, the direct connection between Amsterdam and London.

Also this summer the large -scale modernization of the Maas line will finally start. This important regional connection between Roermond and Nijmegen – with around 22,000 travelers every day – has been struggling for years with outages, crowded trains and a low valuation of travelers. Although the province of Limburg already wanted to start the project in 2016, the operation was postponed time and time again. Plans were changed, costs for equipment and staff rose strongly, a tender failed.

According to the last estimate, the renovation of the Maas line must cost 358 million euros. That is double the budget a few years ago. For that money, the line is electrified, the traces in several places are doubled and twenty consideration are made safer. At the same time, ProRail takes all kinds of measures to spare badgers, birds of prey, bats and other flora and fauna.

From green to gray

In 2024, the Dutch rail network scored above the soil values ​​that ProRail and NS agreed with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. In the first months of the year, the train traffic had many malfunctions, especially. « We had to make a significant adjustment, » said Van Velthuizen. But that requires more and more, she says, in a crowded planning, with shortage on the labor market and in construction.

A hopeful solution she calls ETMS, a European digital train protection system that must replace the old signals. It promises safer and more efficient train traffic, but the introduction is complex and expensive. In April, State Secretary Chris Jansen (Infrastructure and Water Management, PVV) reported that the costs for the construction of ERTMS have increased again, this time by 161 million euros.

In the field of sustainability, ProRail has CO emissions₂ Reduced by more than 50 percent in its own business operations in ten years. Less gas is used and experimentation is made with fully recycled overhead lines and rails. Nevertheless, the official CO takes₂-Footprint in 2025. Due to stricter measuring rules, the purchased European green electricity no longer meets the Dutch standard, which means that it counts accounting as ‘gray’, and no longer as ‘green’.

To share

Mail the editors