TRAIN # 4 – 8:14 Brussels to Amsterdam
We woke up at 07:30 on the dot. I had slept really well. I supposed this was not surprising given that I had stayed awake the previous night. We walked out of the Youth Hostel down to Brussels Centrale station to await the 08:15 InterCity service to Amsterdam. This was formed of a NS (Dutch National Railways) Mat 54/57 “Dog nose” electric multiple unit. The seating was in an open plan layout and comprised of pretty uncomfortable red ‘sit up and beg’ seats.
It was raining in Brussels as we trundled out of the city. In the fifty minutes it took us to reach Antwerp, we finished a breakfast of bread and jam. We reversed at Antwerp and as we went north the train became more crowded. The carriage wasn’t air conditioned and it got stuffy. We tried to open one of the little windows but were stopped by a local guy sitting opposite. We spent quite a while discussing it. Eventually we won the argument and opened it a little bit.
We entered Holland and passed through Rotterdam, Dordrecht and Den Haag. The scenery was flat and quite industrial. I managed to tip the ashtray below the window all over myself. After we passed Haarlem, the last stop, the sun started to shine. We arrived at Amsterdam Central Station at 11:07.
AMSTERDAM
We put the rucksacks into the storage facility at the station; we got a map of the city from the tourist information bureau and then I changed £10 into Guilders. We purchased dagkaarts (day tickets for the city’s public transportation system) for 7.85 each and took the metro to Waterlooplein.
We had a walk around and then caught a tram to Rembrantplein where we treated ourselves to lunch in a McDonald’s. We spent some time walking along the canals and riding the trams, taking in Frederksplein, Ledseplein, the tropical museum and the flower market. Having been hassled by several drug pushers, we eventually ended up escaping to a bar near Dam Square.
We took a tram out to the museum at Anne Frank’s house and queued a while to get inside. The whole thing was, naturally, quite sobering. A crowded rush hour tram took us back towards Central Station and finding a nice little bakery nearby, we stocked up on pizzas, cinnamon pastries and apple pies for the long train journey ahead. 
We went into a brown bar near Nieuwmarkt and, finding draft Heineken to be a bit of a novelty, sat chatting with the barman who was from the South Pacific, and the only other customer, an African woman. The air was thick with the distinct scent of marijuana mixed with tobacco, but we didn’t really have the funds to indulge.
Instead, we walked through the red light district seeing two prostitutes, lots of books and sex aids in the shop windows and somebody being handcuffed by the police.
We arrived back at Central station a little too early and, having the dagkaart but no more money to spend, we jumped on the metro and rode it a few stops and then came back again.
We would now catch the overnight train south to Paris, see the French capital the next day and hopefully stay at the Youth Hostel overnight. We would then continue south all the way to Lisbon in Portugal.
We got the bags out of the left luggage and, whilst trying to find the right platform for the Paris train, spent several minutes explaining to a very persistent tramp that we had no Dutch guilders left.
TRAIN # 5 – 20:26 Amsterdam to Paris
Our train to Paris left on time at 20:26. We sat in one of the SNCF (French National Railways) ‘day carriages’ with rows of seats arranged in an open salon ‘airline style’. This was one of the modern Corail coaches that had been introduced across France on the main routes from the mid-1970s onwards. ‘Corail’ was a portmanteau of the French word confort (comfort) and the English word rail.
The coaches were recognisable by their light grey body, dark grey window bands and orange doors. They all featured full air-conditioning, enhanced soundproofing and advanced suspension which gave a smooth and quiet ride. They were, I thought, the French equivalent of the latest British Mark 3 coach and every bit as comfortable.
We dined on the pizza and apple pie. When the drinks trolley appeared in the aisle, I made the mistake of trying to order coffee in French, “Deux tasse de café s’il vous plait.” The origin of the rolling stock and the destination of the train had deceived me into thinking the staff would be French too. The Dutch trolley guy smiled as he said, “I have been serving on this train long enough to know that you are not French, sir.”
We went back the way we had come; Haarlem, Rotterdam and Antwerp and we were already past Brussels as the midnight hour approached. Comfortable though they were, it was difficult to get to sleep in the day seats and I dozed only intermittently. I knew that not long after midnight we would be woken anyway for the French border.
Forty Years Later….
- Eurostar (formerly Thalys) trains now link Brussels with Amsterdam on the high speed line in less than 2 hours.
- Most trains between the two cities have been routed via Schiphol Airport since 1986.
- The MAT 57 trains left the NS fleet in 1988.
- Euro banknotes and coins replaced the Guilder on January 1, 2002.
- Smoking is now banned in all of Amsterdam’s cafes and bars
- There are no longer any night trains linking Amsterdam and Paris.
- Some Corail carriages are still in operation in France. They will be phased out by 2030.
- I have been back to Amsterdam many times since. For a while in the early 2000s I was going almost every two months for conferences there.
