Den Haag Hollands Spoor Railway Station

Den Haag HS (English: The Hague HS), an abbreviation of the original name Den Haag Hollands Spoor (The Hague Holland's Rail), is the oldest train station in The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands, located on the Amsterdam–Haarlem–Rotterdam railway.

History

Hollands Spoor opened on 6 December 1843, after the Amsterdam–Haarlem railway, the oldest railway in the country, had been extended to The Hague. This line was further extended to Rotterdam in 1847. At the time, the area was a grassland and belonged to the municipality of Rijswijk. Lacking the people to manage law enforcement around the station, Rijswijk ceded the land to the municipality of The Hague. The railway station was named Holland Spoor, after the company which operated it, the Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij. The original building, which was designed by Frederik Willem Conrad, was demolished in 1891 to make way for a Neo-Renaissance building designed by Dirk Margadant.

In 1870, the rival company Nederlandsche Rhijnspoorweg-Maatschappij opened a second main railway station in The Hague, Den Haag Rhijnspoor, on the newly constructed Gouda–Den Haag railway. A railway connection between the two stations was constructed a year later. This railway station was demolished in 1973, to make way for the Den Haag Centraal railway station. As a result, The Hague has two main railway stations: Centraal Station and Hollands Spoor. Trains from Amsterdam to Rotterdam and beyond (Brussels) tend to stop at The Hague HS, whereas trains from Utrecht and Eastern and North-Eastern directions (also by Leiden/Amsterdam Airport Schiphol/Amsterdam) usually stop at Centraal Station. Several trains in southern direction serve both stations.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Den Haag HS railway station" and modified on June 2, 2020 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.