PASSENGER services began operating on the 4km extension of Amsterdam’s light rail network from Amstelveen Westwijk to Uithoorn Centrum on July 21, following an official opening ceremony the day before.
With intermediate stops at Aan de Zoom and Uithoorn Station, the double-track extension has been built on a former railway alignment and is segregated from road traffic, apart from a bus lane between Uithoorn Station and Uithoorn Centrum.
Maximum speed is 70km/h and 50km/h in built-up areas.
The extension project has included doubling the capacity of the stabling facility south of Amstelveen Westwijk.
Construction of the extension started in 2018 and has cost €60m.
Branded as Amsteltram, the extension forms part of Line 25 of the Amsterdam light rail network, now running from Station Zuid to Uithoorn Centrum. The end-to-end journey time is 30 minutes.
Line 25 is operated with bi-directional CAF Urbos 100 LRVs, designated type 15G by GVB.
Services are currently operated with a single LRV rather than pairs of LRVs as intended. This a temporary measure while GVB continues to investigate a derailment that took place during driver training, when the trailing LRV left the track while traversing a set of points in the stabling facility at very low speed.
GVB hopes to be able to introduce a full timetable based on coupled pairs of LRVs on September 1.
Until then, the peak frequency is six services an hour, with five off-peak and four an hour in the evenings. From September 1 there will be a service every 10 minutes throughout the day and four an hour in the late evening.
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