Notes

From Maastricht, I went to Heerlen, in a Plan V. The Plan V can be considered the rough dutch equivalent to the belgian Automotrice Classique: Small, fast, high acceleration, also old, loud and with bad seats. In general, it fares slightly better than the belgians in all these respects, but Veolia (in other regions still and in some regions used to be known as Connex) does not believe in modern useless waste such as cleaning your trains. Indeed, the trains did not even get a new Veolia livery after they were bought, only stickers. Large stickers, sure, but most of the train is still in NS yellow/blue.

This train in Heerlen is, by the way, not the one I boarded in Maastricht. That Plan V never arrived in Heerlen. Apparently, there was track work between Heerlen and a small town called Valkenburg, which nobody told me about. Or rather, they did make announcements back in Maastricht, but in dutch. Now I don’t have anything against the language, I think it’s very interesting, but I don’t speak it. Seeing that both Maastricht and Heerlen directly border on other european countries, an english announcement as well would have been nice, but who am I kidding? The belgians and germans don’t do that either. What I really hate is that the Veolia replacement bus’s destination sign continuously said “Geen Dienst”, which I guess is dutch for “Not in service”. Either way, now my plan is to learn some dutch, if time permits.