Nederlandse Spoorwegen Divisions of NS

Nederlandse Spoorwegen Divisions of NS

Abellio – the subsidiary for operations outside the Netherlands. Abellio has won several franchises in the United Kingdom and Germany.

In 2003, Abellio commenced operating its first rail franchise in the United Kingdom, through its 50% shareholding in Serco-Abellio. From 2004 until 2016, Serco-Abellio also operated the Northern Rail franchise. In May 2009, the Travel London and Travel Surrey bus businesses were purchased from National Express and rebranded as Abellio London and Abellio Surrey.

In February 2012, Abellio Greater Anglia commenced operating the Greater Anglia franchise, and in April 2015, Abellio ScotRail commenced operating the ScotRail franchise. In 2016, Abellio successfully bid to retain the renamed East Anglia franchise until 2025. Abellio partnered with Mitsui for both the East Anglia and the West Midlands franchises, the latter also with JR East. In June 2019 Abellio began operating the East Midlands Railway eight-year franchise.

• NS Reizigers (NSR) – NS Travellers, responsible for passenger train services and for employing train drivers and conductors.
• NS Stations – the result of merging the former :
• NS Stations – in charge of the operation of all 404 railway stations in the Netherlands, i.e., also those served by other railway companies than NS Reizigers, see also station facilities.
• NS Vastgoed – owns 48 km2 of land, often near stations, and develops and operates these areas as public traffic nodes, offices and apartments.
• NedTrain – train maintenance.
• NS Commercie – product- and customer management (business and product development, marketing, sales and customer service).
• NS International – operator, in conjunction with NS Reizigers and foreign partners, of Thalys (from Amsterdam to Paris), ICE (to Cologne and Frankfurt), Intercities (to Berlin) and Intercity Direct services (to Brussels via the HSL-Zuid) and the Nightjet (to Vienna and Innsbruck).

In dealing with the general public, these distinctions are not made and the terms Nederlandse Spoorwegen and NS are used.

NS has contracts with Connexxion and BBA, now Veolia Transport for the provision of bus services to replace train services in the case of planned and unplanned cancellations.

On 23 July 2010 NS sold Strukton to the construction company Oranjewoud N.V.. This concluded a long history of planning, designing and executing track development done by the NS.

NS Logo

The NS corporate logo was designed in 1968 by Gert Dumbar and Gert-Jan Leuvelink, both of the graphic design company Tel Design. Introduced in that same year, it replaced an earlier design which had been used since 1946. The logo, pervasive within trains and railway stations in the Netherlands, plays a significant part in Nederlandse Spoorwegen's signage, promotions, advertising, and graphic design.

• The logo usually appears in blue or black on a dark yellow or white background. Since its introduction, NS livery has also had this same distinct dark yellow or white colour.
• The logo is a widened letter 'N' and a sideways (reversed) 'S'-shape. The two arrows in the logo represent the train's movement, and the two lines in the middle represent the track.

NS Policy

There is a delay refund scheme entitling passengers to a partial or full refund of the ticket price if a journey is delayed by half an hour or more. The scheme does not apply on short-distance journeys (tickets less than €2.30) and cases in which the delay is the result of planned cancellations that were announced some days in advance. Refunds are, in general, half the ticket price of a one-way trip after a delay of over 30 minutes, and the full ticket price after a delay of one hour or more. That applies to nearly all kinds of tickets. The refund is not considered monetary compensation for lost time but rather as a reduction in charges where poor service has been provided. The system has been improved for holders of some rail passes. Part of the cost of the scheme is paid by ProRail, since they are responsible for part of the delays.

Tobacco smoking is prohibited both on trains and in stations. Smoking on trains has been prohibited since 2004, with smoking in stations permitted in designated smoking zones, until this too was disallowed in October 2020.

Since June 2003, the sale of coffee, soft drinks, beer, sandwiches, candy, etc., has ceased aboard domestic trains. The increasing number of Servex convenience stores at railway stations and the relatively short duration of most train journeys in the Netherlands have lowered the demand for on-train services. In 2005, a much reduced in-train service of drinks and small snacks has been reintroduced on longer journeys. Now, the RailTender service primarily operates in the intercity trains on the trajectory between Utrecht and Zwolle/Eindhoven, Zwolle and Almere, 's-Hertogenbosch and Nijmegen, Apeldoorn and Amersfoort, Rotterdam and Breda/Roosendaal/Antwerp.

Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS Nederlandse Spoorwegen) Overview

NS Locale: Netherlands
NS Dates of Operation: 1938–present
NS Predecessor:
Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij (HSM)
Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Staatsspoorwegen (SS)
NS Track Gauge: 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge
NS Company Type: State-owned naamloze vennootschap
NS Industry: Rail transport
NS Founded: 1938
NS Headquarters: Utrecht, Netherlands
NS Key People: Wouter Koolmees (CEO)
NS Products: Rail transport, rail construction, services
NS Revenue:
Decrease €5,980 million (2021)
€6,661 million (2019)
NS Net Income:
Increase €116 million (2018)
€47 million (2017)
NS Total Assets:
Increase €7,030 million (2018)
€6,214 million (2017)
NS Total Equity:
Decrease €11,786 million (2021)
€3,477 million (2017)
NS Number of Employees:
Increase 38,600 (2020)
40,978 (2020)
NS Parent: State of the Netherlands
NS Subsidiaries:
Abellio
Nedkoleje
NSRegio (99%)
WestfalenBahn
Nederlandse Spoorwegen