Victims unite against train trafic German-Dutch border

Thursday October 14th 2010 is a memorable day in the history of Hengelo. Not only did local politicians and residents join hands to try to get the plans for the increase of freight train traffic on the Twentelijn off the table, but they will also cooperate with RONA (Regionaal Overleg Noordelijke Aftakking). Jan Gerrits is involved and will keep us updated.

Blown away

More than 80 people came to the debate about the freight trains in pop stage Metropool. Henk Nijhof, GroenLinks chairman and former alderman in Hengelo, hosted the successful evening. He lives close to the train track, so he can relate to the problems that face us. Not only the people close to the train track are in danger, also people living hundreds of meters away. When a wagon filled with LPG explodes everything in a circle of 500 meters is blown away.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Hengelo lies on the train track Amsterdam-Berlin. It’s on the main road ‘A1’ too. And if worse comes to worst, it will have an airport on its doorstep soon. Did I mention we have a canal here too? But despite the good position of Hengelo, for the inhabitants enough is enough mobility-wise.

The city council has a duty to have regard for the welfare of the citizens. But the truth might be that the city council was informed too late to do anything about the increase of freight trains in Hengelo. I spoke to someone who works for the NS who believes that “The Hague” (seat of the Dutch national parliament) is really running this show and is already far ahead of the cities and provinces. The latter will hardly have a say in the process anymore.

Just across the border the beautiful city of Bad Bentheim is also very worried about the enormous increase in freight trains. Close to the existing train track lie Bentheim Castle and the Bentheim Spa. And of course a lot of people live close to the train track too. We are in good contact with our German Euregio-neighbours and we keep each other well informed.

And… Action!

The freight trains plans are yet another example of how to fool innocent civilians. It’s mostly too late to do anything about it by the time they get a hold of the plans. The legal system doesn’t protect them at all. That should change; a new law is in the making.

But now all these people and action groups along the Twentelijn will unite and operate as a group. They will also try to make clear that it’s not only about the trains and the possible routes through/around Hengelo and other cities but about the Tweede Maasvlakte and the PHS (passenger trains every 10 minutes) in the Western part of Holland. During the meeting that was made very clear by member of the Provincial Parliament and citizen of Hengelo, Jean Rouwet of the SP (Socialist Party). A member of the public said: “It’s also about consuming less.” I think it’s true; the less we consume the less has to be transported and the less we pollute and lie awake at night.

There are even more ways of looking at the problem. Goods will be transported from the West of Holland to the East of Holland and the destination of these goods will be Eastern, Northern and Southern Europe. They are just passing through here. So why should Holland deal with the routes these trains should take. Why can’t Germany take care of further transportation of the freight and get the connection to the Betuwelijn sorted? It looks like a typical NIMBY-case on a European level.

Let’s see how far this newborn action group will get. We tried to stop the airport and did not succeed so far. But now more people are directly involved so who knows… And count me in!

I’ll keep you posted.