🇳🇱 Country
Train routes in Netherlands
15 routes · high-speed 4 · classic 6 · night train 2 · heritage 3
15 routes cross Netherlands in the World Train Map atlas. The longest is the European Sleeper at 1,200 km; the fastest is the Eurostar (Thalys), running up to 300 km/h; the oldest line dates to 1861. Every route links to its facts, photo and story, and to the interactive world map.
Open the world railway map →Part of the Europe train map: every route on the continent, one map.
High-speed (4)
- Eurostar (Thalys)
The crimson Thalys, folded into Eurostar in 2023, chains French, Belgian and Dutch high-speed lines into one dash.
Wikipedia ↗ - ICE International
Upgraded to new ICE 3neo trains in late 2025, replacing loco-hauled Intercitys on the roughly six-hour cross-border run to the Dutch capital.
Wikipedia (DE) ↗ - ICE International
ICE 3M multi-system sets leave Amsterdam and, past Cologne, dive onto the 300 km/h Cologne–Rhine/Main line with its motorway-style gradients.
Wikipedia (DE) ↗ - Eurostar
A single train from St Pancras to Amsterdam Centraal since 2018: under the Channel, across Flanders and over the Dutch polders in about four hours.
Wikipedia ↗
Classic (6)
- Intercity
The northbound Intercity crosses the young Flevoland polders on the Hanzelijn — the Almere–Lelystad stretch past the Oostvaardersplassen wetlands was voted the Netherlands’ most beautiful train journey by NS passengers in 2016 — then skirts the low Hondsrug ridge to Groningen in a little over two hours.
- Intercity
Double-deck VIRM Intercitys run almost the whole length of the country to Maastricht, the old Dutch city on the Meuse near the Belgian border.
- Intercity Direct
New ICNG trains take the HSL-Zuid high-speed line, hitting 200 km/h as they link Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Breda without a change.
Wikipedia ↗ - Liège–Maastricht railway
Down the Meuse from Liège to Maastricht, a cross-border run open since 1861 and now worked by Arriva's Dutch regional trains.
Wikipedia ↗ - Intercity Vlissingen
The long way to the sea: Haarlem, Leiden, The Hague and Rotterdam, then over the Hollands Diep into Zeeland and along the Scheldt through Goes and Middelburg to Vlissingen, on rails finished in 1873.
Wikipedia ↗ - Intercity Den Helder–Nijmegen
Coast to the German border in one train: from Den Helder at the tip of North Holland through Alkmaar and Amsterdam, then Utrecht, the edge of the Veluwe and Arnhem to Nijmegen on the Waal.
Night train (2)
- European Sleeper
Crowdfunded start-up that gave the Low Countries their night train back: via The Hague and Amsterdam to Berlin and the Elbe valley to Prague.
Wikipedia ↗ - Nightjet Zurich–Amsterdam
Asleep along the Rhine, awake on the IJ: the 2021 revival that re-linked the Alps to the canals, sliding past Cologne’s floodlit cathedral at midnight.
Wikipedia ↗
Heritage (3)
- Miljoenenlijn
Nicknamed the Million Line for its ruinously costly cuttings and viaducts, this steam railway climbs the only real hills in the Netherlands, in South Limburg.
Wikipedia ↗ - Museumstoomtram Hoorn–Medemblik
A steam tram dating from 1887 still crosses North Holland’s polders and tulip fields between Hoorn and the old Zuiderzee port of Medemblik.
Wikipedia ↗ - Veluwsche Stoomtrein
The Netherlands’ biggest steam operation: wartime German Kriegsloks and a forty-strong fleet work the 1887 Veluwe country line between Apeldoorn and Dieren.
Wikipedia ↗
Photos via Wikimedia Commons — each route page credits the author & licence
Cross-border lines continue into
- 🇧🇪 Train routes in Belgium 17 routes
- 🇨🇿 Train routes in Czechia 18 routes
- 🇫🇷 Train routes in France 102 routes
- 🇩🇪 Train routes in Germany 104 routes
- 🇨🇭 Train routes in Switzerland 69 routes
- 🇬🇧 Train routes in United Kingdom 73 routes