Nijmegen Transportation

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The first Nijmegen train station was opened in August 9, 1865. The building was located at the present location of the Vereeniging Concert Hall at the Keizer Karel square at the tracks to Kleef in Germany.

At June 15, 1879 Nijmegen became connected to the Dutch National RailRoads. The first connection was the track to Arnhem via a new bridge over the Waal river.
The next connections were to Tilburg/'s-Hertogenbosch (1881) and later to Venlo (1883).

In 1894 a new Station building was constructed from the hand of architect C.H. Peters. During WWII the station became badly damaged due to bombing. Some of the original parts of the station remained though.

The present building dates from 1954 en is designed by Sybold van Ravesteyn.

Nijmegen has other smaller stations:
-Nijmegen Lent
-Nijmegen Heyendaal
-Nijmegen Dukenburg

Despite Nijmegens hilltop location cycling is still the most popular means of local transport and in fact the city centre is closed off to motor vehicles apart from buses and deliveries.

The hills themselves aren't too steep and the roads, and the bridge, all have cycle lanes and the surrounding area is pretty level. I had intended to hire a bike myself and cycle over the border to Kleve in Germany but unfortunately it rained all day - another reason for a revisit!

Several of the hotels offer bike hire (including Hotel Courage) and there is also a hire place at the railway station with adult prices from 7.50 Euro per day.

I don't know anything about this at all but it seemed like some sort of freebie shuttle bus for getting around the city, perhaps with a solar-powered charging station?

The city is of course perfectly walkable but perhaps this is something sponsored by local businesses as a shopper's shuttle??

If anyone who reads this has any info please don't hesitate to give me a heads up.

Update: thanks to PJ, I've now discovered that this isn't just a city runaround but is in fact quite a major project in the advancement of non-polluting, solar-powered transport. The SOIOS vehicles so far developed include the "Suntrain" as in this pic and also the "Solarolar" which is a solar-powered vehicle for individual transport. All interesting stuff!! Check out the website.

Cheers! John.

I've always been impressed by the Dutch railway system which covers all major towns and cities in the country with clean, comfortable trains, good conections, well-appointed stations and reasonable prices. Getting to and from Nijmegen by train is pretty simple with the main lines running to Utrecht (and then pretty much anywhere else), south to Maastricht (via Venlo) and southwest to Eindhoven (through s'Hertogenbosch).

On my last visit (Oct 2008) I was coming fom the ferry at Hoek van Holland which meant traversing the breadth of the country. Should I have been in a rush the total journey time would have been only about 2 and a half hours with changes at Rotterdam and Utrecht - which is pretty good for a crosscountry train trip compared to a similar journey here in the UK.

Nijmegen Central station is about 5 minutes walk from the city centre and there is a useful little information board just outside the station with a city map. Next door to the rail station is the bus station for journeys to the outlying villages.

The best way to get a feel for Nijmegen is by renting a bicycle. As the city's government is mostly left winged, there are a lot of bike paths and free bicycle accomodation in the city center which is great. It is paid with the proceeds from the parking garages for cars. If you go by car, there are plenty of parking spaces available don't worry. The only problem is that you can only pay with a so called Chipknip or with your credit card.

"Schubschiff Franz Haniel 16". And a fine push tug it is! Where would Nijmegen be without them? I just love the sight of these boats going up and down the river Waal, sometimes pushing upto four barges in one 'multiple barge convoy set' . People tried to combine six barges in one set, but subsequently they found it very hard to steer through the local bend in the river Waal ...

The airport shuttle express will take you direct to the Niederrhein airport across the border.
Schedule is 7:35, 12:15 and 20:25

Airport shuttle express

The easy and fast connection to this place is by train. The only thing is that if you do not have the money for the ticket in coins you need to buy in from the counter, means, more queue and extra cost.