This morning I returned from a one week holiday trip to Taiwan. After a relatively short and comfortable flight serviced by KLM, seated at the emergency exit, I exited Customs after little less than 12 hours. Considering about 1 hour and 15 minutes for taxiing, walking across the airport, standing in line at passport control and waiting at the baggage belt, this is an all-time record. The next 130km to get to Eindhoven took me 4 and a half hour, 3 hours more than normal.
One of the reasons for this huge delay caused by the Dutch railway company NS is that I arrived at the train station too early. Train service only started about half an hour later. For tourists arriving at night at an international airport like Schiphol (10th in size world wide) this is of course an immediate big disappointment. The fact that all the shops in the station hall were closed at this hour and the disgusting hygiene level of the platforms does not help prevent tourists wonder ‘What hell hole did I arrive in now?’. The train I caught to Amsterdam Central station after waiting for over half an hour, only strengthened the impression. For some reason we pick up our tourists in the most terrible trains available, even considering the fact that all Dutch train designs in general lack consideration for some basic consumer insights.
After this first experience the rest of the trip was hardly any worse. At Amsterdam I had to wait 20 minutes for the train to Utrecht. There I had to wait 30 minutes for the bus to Den Bosch. Normally there would be a train but due to scheduled train track maintenance passengers were transported by bus. Unfortunately the first bus was scheduled to depart at 7.30h, not considering any passengers arriving earlier from other stations. The bus arrived at Den Bosch at 8.12, just 5 minutes too late to catch the train to Eindhoven. After waiting a bit longer and a last 20 minute train ride I arrived at Eindhoven at 9.00h after which I took the city bus home, arriving there only 4 and a half hours after I left the airport.