Fyra and the Grand Place

 

I’m doing some frantic oscillation across the Channel, as though getting ready to slingshot to Seattle.  Three Eurostar trips, two Fyra trips, keeping costs and the carbon footprint down a little.  I like the train this time of year, more certain, cheaper, my luggage stays with me. 

Especially a 100-year-old teapot  that I am hand-carrying to Denver for a neighbor in England.

The prosaic reason for all the travel is the UK Border Agency.  I’m in Tier 1 Renewal Hell:  my counselors are rejecting every attempt to document proof of income.  We put together a P&L with original bank statements and the signed Dutch accountants audit letter, only to find that the British don’t recognize the Dutch firms legitimacy.  Barclays again proved unable to produce a simple signed letter stating the monies in the account.  They want my original doctoral diploma from the US.

And this is just a *renewal*!

I linked trains in Brussels, which gave me an opportunity to sample both the city Christmas Markets and the new Hi-Speed train connecting to Amsterdam, the Fyra (pronounced fi-ra).

  

The train is great: clean and new, unbelievably fast and smooth.  250 km/hr across the Dutch landscape with no more than a gentle sway.  2 hours, center to center, for 25 euros.

There have been glitches, and I caught one of them, about ten minutes south of Schiphol.  The train suddenly decelerated and stopped it a jolt.  The conductor announced a technical problem.  Then he announced that the driver had to reboot the train: the lights and air would go out (sounds like restarting the fences in Jurassic park).  Everyone waved phones in the darkness.  After a few minutes, back to normal and off we went.

Still, very recommended (even when the alternative is 10 gbp each way Stansted to Maastricht on Ryanair  nest month)

  

The controversy in Brussels is over the Xmas 3, the ‘christmas tree’ at the Grand Place.  It’s an 82-foot high construction of illuminated cubes vaguely in the shape  of a tree.  It’s not very appealing: fewer lights on the city hall, less music in the square, and this framework and fabric construction.  Critics argue that, together with calling the Market a “Winter Festival”, it is intended to make the event less offensive to non-Christians.  Where’s O’Reilly (actually, it turns out that he did pick this up on Dec 10 for his “War on Christmas” shtick)?

The huts were good, though: 2 euro Gluhwijn, Alsace platters of potatoes and sausage, lots of waffles and chocolates, and a good crowd enjoying the evening together.

The ‘tree’ needs to be consigned to the same circle of hell as the UKBA.   The same Border agency who grilled me today about why I needed to go to Amsterdam for original documentation for my visa renewal. 

And who then searched all of my bags on re-entry to the UK.

The new face of Kings Cross

I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve transited Kings Cross / St. Pancras stations in London.  It’s the major crossing point between London and Cambridge trains, a Eurostar hub, and my go-to spot for free WiFi as I dash between meetings on the Tube.  It’s also dim, crowded, a bit run-down and occasionally depressing if it’s late and the da has been difficult.  I can pluck a platform off of the orange reader-board announcing train departures whilst on the run,and know exactly where to grab a sandwich slice or coffee along the way.

 

St. Pancras opened a major renovation a couple of years ago, and the updates have been underway for the Kings Cross station.  The new departures area opened this week, and it’s a pretty nice change.  They’ve opened up the area adjacent to the old building with new ticket areas and restaurants, more space, better lighting and higher ceilings.

   

On the downside, the Evoluon-Eindhoven style of the building doesn’t fit the station well, and the ceiling lattice, similar to the British Museum, is more of a façade than an integral part of the building.  The train announcements have been expanded into a long runner board that will take more time to read than the concise stack of departures, so I’ll need to adapt my style. 

But it’s closer to my 9-10 departure platforms and a welcome change from the previous waiting area.  I expect my 10pm moods to improve each time I dash through.

 

Zusatz: Crossing the frontier

Even after six years living in the Netherlands, the little things can trip me up.

This week, the big medical device show, Medica, is running in Dusseldorf.  The easiest way to get there is by train: NS to Roermond, Veolia to Venlo, then the VRR to Dusseldorf.  Simple.

Almost.

The problem is that the station is two miles from the German border.   And any train ride, even a two-mile one, requires a ticket.

The solution is a Zusatz.

A Zusatz is a train ticket that covers that two mile stub: I’d never heard of it but it’s required to ride the VRR out of the Netherlands.  They can only be obtained at the point where the VRR embarks, using a separate ticket machine.  And, since the trains only run once each hour, there’s no time to learn about that process during a five minute transfer.

So, cooling my heels in the Venlo station for an hour and five minutes, there was plenty of time to understand and document the process for those who may follow my tumbling footsteps:

1) Find the special Fahrkarten ticket machines.  (Men and women seem equally confused by the process: the difference is that women cluster and consult, men frown and jab at buttons in solitary frustration).

2)  Hit the Zusatz Tickets button, then the Ausgabe… option.  They are the same price, but the top Tickets option gives you a stamped ticket good for only 90 minutes, while the lower Ausgabe choice gives an unstamped ticket that is good anytime.

  

3) Add a ticket: since I want to return to the Netherlands, I need two for the round trip, and I can’t buy a Zusatz in Dusseldorf.  In fact, buy several, so that this won’t happen again tomorrow during a tight connection.

4)  Pay the extortionate fare.

5)  Wait one hour for the next train.  (Bring reading material – there is little to do at 8 am in the Venlo station.)

6) Stamp the Zusatz.  Don’t do it earlier – don’t do it in Maastricht:  the ticket is only good for 90- minutes once stamped.

7)  Have the Zusatz ready when the conductor comes by to ask for it.  They actually did.

8) Remember to stamp the remaining Zusatz before leaving Dusseldorf.  Otherwise you have to hunt for a machine in stations along the route down.

  

PS:  Don’t forget to punch-in and punch-out during transfers from NS to Veolia.  Although both trains accept OV-Kaart, they run different accounts and you have to be checked in with the carrier you ride.

And, yes, at least I did that bit right…

Crossing the Channel

Maybe I should go back to writing about China.

I headed back to the Netherlands this morning, weighing the alternatives of train, car-ferry, and airline before settling on the Eurostar.  £89 round-trip fares from London to Amsterdam are being advertised, but I was only able to find a £69 one-way to Maastricht. Still, it beats Ryanair/NS or Total / Norfolkline this time of year.

A 10:57 departure from St. Pancras allows for a leisurely trip down from Cambridge/Royston, usually less than a 1-hour trip.  Unusually, when I checked the National Rail website ahead of walking to the station at 8 am, I discovered that all trains to London were cancelled (‘National Rail regrets any inconvenience that this may cause.’).

All ?!?

It seems that an overhead line problem between Kings Lynn and Ely stranded a lot of trains, while a broken engine blocked the tracks somewhere near Hitchen.  Delays of over an hour were already being reported; a quick call to Panther confirmed that there was already a run on taxicabs.

I tossed bags in the car and headed to Royston, where at least occasional trains were reported to be leaving.

The first obstacle was long-term parking.  UK stations subscribe to an automated payment system, improbably called myringo.com.  Dial in, enter your license plate, location, and credit card, and you’re parked.   The first problem was that the system didn’t recognize Dutch license plate configurations – it  sent an SMS to the phone, asked for the plate in a return text, then a call back to confirm the text.  Meanwhile, the stationmaster was on the loudspeaker: All passengers are advised to board the train now in the station; severe delays of up to an hour are expected until the next train.  I hammered frantically at the phone; RingGo’s voice recognition mangled every American utterance.

The station was empty and quiet as I dashed onto the platform.  Two technicians bent over a flickering yard status board, LED-red showing everywhere.  “Are any trains getting through?” Hard to say.  “Any guesses?”  Hard to say.

Nonetheless, an express appeared, somehow routed around the wreckage to the north. It slipped through the maze of rerouted trains and filled platforms and arrived at King’s Cross 45 minutes ahead of the departure.  With entry gates open until 30 minutes ahead, I was home free.

Then I hit security, who decided my cable- and book-filled luggage was likely a terrorist threat.  We camped out at the x-ray, one guard and me, while she picked up, shook out, and inspected each (and every) item in my suitcase.  One at a time, deposited in a big box next to her counter as she finished.  Each package had to be opened; every book had to be riffled.  And, at the end, she handed me a big box of my tossed belongings and my empty suitcase, asking if I wanted help.

Nee, ‘dank.

I still made the train, though not by much. My random seatmates, a Dutch family returning home, couldn’t have been nicer.  And, emerging from the Chunnel, the clouds opened up, and the sun came out, and there was a whiff of Belgian wafels in the crisp autumn air in Brussels.  My attitude progressively brightened; my ear gradually tuned back towards Nederlands.  ‘Not sure that the car will still be at the station on my return, but there’s every prospect that, with the worst behind, I might get a good week ahead.

Zondag, naar Luik

The Eurostar slid into Brussels Midi a bit after 3; I tugged my suitcase off the doorway, three long steps above the platform, and incanted Ik stap uit de trein.  It probably cuts no ice in the French-speaking capital of Europe, but the parallel Dutch narrative helps with vocabulary (and to find words that I need to learn).

The connectors trip me up more than the nouns and verbs.  If, actually, then, because, except, though, like… I think in compound thoughts and fidget when my sentences don’t have phrases. 

It’s not just the words (als, eigenlijk, dan, omdat, behalve, toch,  net als), but the way they affect word order, when to add an ‘e’, the form of the verb.

And by the time I sort that out, I’ve lost track of the sentence or the conversation has moved on.

Still, with practice.

I tuck my earbuds deeper: I should be listening to Niewslijn, but NPR takes less concentration in a crowded terminal.  I scan the boards for Liege, find Luik, and head for track 4a.  A bathroom break would be nice, but I’ve got 20 euro and 40p, a bad combination for the 50p entry fee.

The commentator drones about the new wave of male waxing.  Apparently limited to chest hair, it still sounds very affected.  Nearby, John Travolta dances with Princess Diana on a magazine cover – I shake my head.  Urban Cowboy, Saturday Night Fever: He was the king of affect, of becoming someone you want to be just by changing your costume.  A sidestep, really, that keeps you from ever becoming who you want to be.

The 70’s rolled into Cambridgeshire last weekend; everyone (over 50) dressing up in big hair and loud colors. 

I don’t think that the British ever did disco, really, so the music is Beatles and ABBA.  I wonder whether our music will survive once our generation is gone; even now it sounds cliché.  Multicolor lasers flicker from robotic hardware: scientists in the 60’s would have killed for this kit.  Now they pulse to YMCA in a simple village hall.

Still, it’s a familiar rhythm and happy memories follow from every melody.  And it doesn’t feel affected.

The train is late, but the sun is out and it’s nice to sit along the platform, watching the people and the transport. People ask if I get lonely, and I suppose that a birch-bark blond fifty-something, alone on the platform with a suitcase beneath his legs, evokes something of that sentiment.  Certainly there are ideas I’d talk about; idle chit-chat to share.  But at the same time, I am busy with notes and narratives, plans and sketches, and the time passes quickly.

Finally, the train arrives, and Ik stap aan, then off to Luik,  frowning at my computer screen as I try to adopt the new spreadsheets that my accountants want me to use. 

The steden en dorpen slide by against the green countryside:   Leuven…St. Truiden…Huisen… Hasselt…Genk ?  I realize that the line has swung far north of the main line if, indeed, I was ever on the right train to begin with.  Damn.

Nouns, verbs, no problem.  It’s the connections. that throw me.

Op de trein

I was tootling around the countryside all day today, hopping from one outpost to the next on the East Coast line.  I needed to get from Cambridge up to Sheffield for meetings, 60 GBP round trip, 3 hours each way.

In general, I prefer the train over the car for cross-country trips – I can work, eat, daydream without having to worry about routing, traffic, stressful drivers, and bad weather.

It’s the daydreaming bit that gets me into trouble, though.

The trip was planned from Cambridge to Peterborough to Retford to Sheffield, about an hour each leg.  On the Tube, I count stations and generally have a good sense of when I’m coming up on a change.  But I don’t know the stops up north and so I managed to have everything spread across my worktable when the Retford station signs appeared outside the window.  Damn.  The train was moving on before I could pick up.  Fortunately, Doncaster was next, essentially doing two legs of a triangle instead of cutting across, but it only added 20 minutes.

I resolved to be more vigilant.  So, when the loudspeaker crackled “Sheffield”, I was ready.  Bags under my arm, coat over my shoulder, I bounded off the train and up the construction entry, passing the “Book your booze cruise with us” announcement alongside a forlorn barge on a rubbish-strewn canal.  At the road I looked for the tram up to the University – nothing in sight, but the construction probably put me out the other side.  No matter, I hailed a cab and swung inside.

“To the University, please!”  The driver looked baffled.  Which one?  “Sheffield”  Still no recognition.  “Straight up the hill; follow the tram line?”  You’re sure?    Natuurlijk.

Off we go, around the station, over the hill, onto the highway, headed west.

“Ummm – where’s Sheffield?”  About seven miles up the road.  “I got off at the wrong station.”  You want to go back? 

My hosts were very nice about my late arrival.   They told me about a foreign student that they once had who assumed that the trains ran on time.  He knew that he was due into Sheffield at 2:10 pm so, when his watch said 2:10 and the train was stopped in a station, he got off.  Apparently miles away from Sheffield; we was similarly lost trying to get to the labs.

I think I don’t feel so bad…?

Cheap travel between Holland and England

I have to get to the UK periodically from Maastricht and, as the summer travel season approaches, the fares are shuffling.  So, the best deals may not be the usual alternatives, and I’m finding that a little digging can save a lot.

Here are the methods I’m following; I’d be interested in other ideas?

   Note: I have not been solicited nor compensated for this essay: it contains my own research and opinions.

Train: The Eurostar runs from Brussels Midi to London St. Pancras for around £90 one way, leaving every couple of hours and arriving in two hours later.

However, if I go from any Dutch Station directly up to Cambridge, the price inexplicably drops to £67.   This is all inclusive: from any Dutch station through London and onward, saving both the 25 euro fare to Brussels and the £34 fare up from London, plus there are no added fees if you use a debit card to pay. I can’t explain it, but I could only find it on the Eurostar website, not through RailEurope or eRail.

Here’s the fine print – it’s also nice that you can use the Dutch ticket up to a day in advance, giving time to enjoy Brussels.

Ferry:  Day ferries to Dover leave from Dunkirk or Calais and take an hour and a half to cross.  I like Norfolkline and P&O (less fond of SeaFrance): all are comfortable alternatives to flying (in good weather), and new boats, better food, and free WiFi are coming online (ah, competition).  Fares are 30 euro one-way, including two people and a car and are best booked at least 3 days in advance.

Prices were 66% less when booking Dover-Calais-Dover than Calais-Dover-Calais on the same day last time I purchased.  Buying multi-trip ticket books can also drop the price dramatically, and a coupon search will occasionally turn up a code for 10% off.  The lines allow some flexibility if you miss the boat, the car travel from Maatricht to the French docks takes 4 hours, and another 2 up to Stansted (the Dartford Crossing on the M25 Orbital is a killer either way), so this is a day trip, with about 100 euro in gas.

I’ve never used it, but there are also  “Rail and Sail” discount packages that use Stena lines overnight ferries between Hoek van Holland to Harwich, connecting to NS and National Rail trains at either end.

Flights: I usually make the trip by air, an hour’s flight with either Ryanair (from Eindhoven) or EasyJet (from Amsterdam). There is talk that a Maastricht service may start; I haven’t been able to find the rumored cheap alternatives from Koln or Brussels. Skyscanner is a good one-stop spot for comparing fares and has nice tools for seeing ‘by country’ at a glance and ‘by day’ for a month. One-way fares are generally around £40 if I book at least a week ahead and don’t check a bag, so total fare is about £70 with train / bus connections to the airport.

So, at the moment, the train is looking both fast and cheap.  Can anyone else do better?

Planes and Trains

For the London Evening Standard, it was “Defiant Commuters beating the Tube strike.”  For me, it was squinting through jet lag to say “What do you mean ‘I can’t get to Piccadilly??”

The flight back to the Continent was great, I got bumped up because few fliers travel during the Labor Day weekend – seats that fold flat, decent food, wider movie selection.  The airlines can do it when they want to, they just choose not to for most people.  British customs, in contrast, was overwhelmed by the arrivals and it too 2 hours to get through the queue (while being reassured that “Tougher checks take more time”).

I got a bit of prep done before Tuesday’s meetings, an all-day training session starting at 10 in London.  The trains from Shepreth run every half hour, so I levered out of bed to catch the 7:32, arriving at 8:50.  Plenty of time, on any normal day.

However, transit through the King’s Cross station turned into a cascade of problems.  My phone vanished en-route.  My Oyster card failed at turnstyles.  The Piccadilly Line entry was gated and empty.  A transit worker advised me to go one stop north, backtrack to the south on a parallel line, exit at an adjacent stop, and head overland.  Tube carriages arrived bursting with people, we squeezed on like the old Japanese commuter pictures, riding compressed against walls and doors.

Nonetheless, I arrived at Leicester Square with a half hour to spare, and a lovely sunny day instead of the forecast downpour.  The training sessions turned out to be surprisingly useful, and I was out in time to go to the O2 store to get a replacement for my (fully-insured) phone.  The Oyster card turns out to conflict with the Cambridge card in the same wallet, a flip of the wrist solves the problem.  And there was a delightful new ‘ship in a bottle’ sculpture at Trafalgar Square to appreciate.

All in all, the world was set right again by supper, leaving jet lag as the only lingering issue.  And an early night’s sleep is still the best cure for that.

Voordeelurenabonnement

I may not be able to pronounce it, but this has been one of the best discounts going for the past year.

The Voordeelurenabonnement is the NS “Off-peak discount pass”: it’s good for 40% off the price of all Dutch rail travel during off-peak periods.  It costs 55 euro and is good for a year; apply at the NS desk at the train station, bringing a passport photo and cash.  In about three weeks, the permanent pass arrives and you’re good to go.

It took me a few tries to understand that “off-peak” is not the same as “not during rush hours”.  In the US there would be morning and afternoon restrictions: in the Netherlands you simply can’t use it before 9 am (except weekends and in July and August, when the discount is good all day).  I shaved it too close on one trip up to Endhoven and the conductor asked me to leave the train at Weert, 15 minutes shy of the stop, to purchase a new ticket (he relented as I stood, sniffling, at the door).

40% off really adds up over the course of the year, and the discount can be applied to two friends traveling with you.  For an extra 15 euro, the card can be extended to RailPlus, securing a 25% discount on rail trips throughout Europe.  However, as I found when I showed it baffled UK and Belgian ticket agents, it’s only good for trains originating and terminating in the Netherlands, and not the Thayles or Eurostar.  A pity.

When the Voordeelurenabonnement arrives, it is embedded in a personal OV-chipcard, the paperless ticketing system coming online throughout the Netherlands.  Similar to an Oyster card in the UK, it’s a swipe-and-go pass for paying for public transportation, whether by tram, metro, train, or bus.  Load money onto the card, then wave it over the kiosk at the journey’s start, and again at the destination.  The sensor lights up as the card is read successfully, and the fare is deducted from the card balance with the discount applied.

The card has to be registered online (not at the station) before starting to use it.  First go to Mijn NS to register the card, then to Mijn OV to connect it to a bank card.  Finally, once it’s set up, you need to back through the OV site to approve the privacy policies before it starts logging your travel.  The registration sites are entirely in Dutch; I enlisted my bookkeeper to walk through it with me.  The information is useful if you want to print transaction histories for reimbursement and recharge the card online.

Overall, the Voordeelurenabonnement is a great deal and getting an OV is a nice side benefit.

Riding the rails

Meetings in Rotterdam today, since I'm sans-auto it was a good chance to try out the new train pass and make the appointments by rail and public transport.

Journey planning starts with the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) Rail website, determining the best way to get from Maastricht up to Rotterdam (a two-hour car drive). The query engine is straightforward but was broken this morning, returning "No route found" to all proposals. No matter, there are only two main rail junctions to the north, and the information kiosk at the main station confirmed one change at Eindhoven. They said the train left at 8:37, and it was already 8:33, so I did a (slow) sprint over to Track 3, only to find an empty train that didn't leave until 8:54.

Launch errors aside, I enjoy taking the blue and yellow Dutch trains. The Sneltreins and InterCity coaches run fast and on-time, and the connections are always impressively coordinated. I generally find that I only need to walk across the platform to find the next train waiting for me. The trains are quiet (electric) and smooth, so I catch up on writing, typing, or reading with little difficulty. The cabins are clean and moderately full of students and older commuters, surging on and off at major stops. The round-trip fare, 25 euro at 40% discount, was reasonable considering the total four-hour trip out and back. The discount is supposedly good Off-Peak hours only, but nobody has been able to tell me what that includes yet. The platform helpers tell me that there are no "peak hours" in summer, but that almost every weekday minutes is a peak hour in winter. I'll find out soon.

Once I arrived at Rotterdam Centraal, the next jump was to Erasmus MC. Not physically far on a map, but there are a bewildering number of options to get to the institution. Metro, tram, bus, are all outlined on the Rotterdamse Elektrische Tram (RET) website.

Local transit uses strippenkarten for access, but they are encouraging use of the new OV-chipkaart. I got a yellow OV-Kaart from NS, but it didn't look like the blue RET-style one that I needed. Further, it turned out that my Maastricht strippenkart wasn't transferable to Rotterdam's local system. Although tram 8 looked like the best bet, I arrived in the city center with only ten minutes to spare before the scheduled meeting and I could have spent an hour figuring out the last bit. So, regretfully I cheated and flagged a taxi for the last leg (10 euro).

Nonetheless, an encouraging trip, and it will get better with practice. And I managed to stay on the correct side of the train-split in Sittard, avoiding the side trip to Heerlen. 'A good day, overall.