De Finishlijn

 

I was, in truth, getting tired of the Amsterdam Metro.  (Reader's voice: YOU'RE TIRED?)  Not tired of the stations, not tired of the city, but just tired of the relentlessness.  This was, don't forget, meant to be a leisurely three day quest, and instead it was crammed into two.  Add in the general stress of it all and my brain was getting a little fritzed.  On top of that, my feet ached.  I'd not worn my big sturdy walking boots because I wanted to get through airport security without any problems; the trouble is, now I was learning that Vans aren't really built for pounding the pavement, and they're certainly not very good when it comes to cobbles.

I uncurled myself from the seat on the train and stiffly walked towards the escalators at Amsterdam Bijlmer ArenA station.  (Yes, that final A is a capital as well, work with it).  At least it was an impressive station.  Comprehensively rebuilt in 2007, there's an intriguing mix of colours and textures that really impress.

There's something quite sci-fi about it, quite Star Wars-y; those shooting roof pieces feel like they could be the roof of an X-Wing hangar.  Deep voids lead down to the passenger concourse. 

All this space is, of course, to accommodate the thousands of people who pass through on their way to the complex of entertainment spaces just outside.  Amsterdam put in a bid for the 1992 Olympics, the ones that went to Barcelona, and the centrepiece was a brand new stadium here in Bijlmer.  Though that failed - Amsterdam went out in the first round, before Birmingham - the spot was still suitable for a new football ground for Ajax.

Even I've heard of Ajax.  They're one of those European teams you can name off the top of your head, like Spartak Moscow or Real Madrid or Borussia Mönchengladbach.  Ajax have won the European Cup/Champions League four times, and that is the beginning and end of the football chat here, because even looking at the Wikipedia page for them bored me senseless.  All I wanted to know was if they were any good and suddenly I'm being bombarded with tedious stats and factoids.  (Also, the last time I tried talking about football, Queen of Women's Soccer Carrie Dunn swept in and corrected all my points about Manchester City Women, so I'm not doing that again).  

The plaza outside the station is very Wembley; a series of alluring traps to get people to spend money on their way to and from an event.  The night before I visited, Coldplay had played; I believe they're a very popular beat combo.  I mean, I know who Coldplay are, I've just never heard one of their songs and had it permeate into my brain to the extent that I recognise it as a Coldplay song.  Actually, that's not quite true - there was an advert for BMW that played before No Time To Die and on about the sixth viewing of it I found myself pulling out my phone and Shazaming to find out who was doing the music.  It turned out it was Coldplay's Higher Power, but I wouldn't take that as a win for Chris Martin, because I also became enamoured with the music they used for the Matrix Resurrections and House of Gucci trailers; I'm in a very vulnerable state when there's a new Bond film about to play.  

The music venue next to the stadium had posters showing people who'd previously played there and - hang on, who's that next to Sting?

I felt strangely proud seeing Trixie & Katya there with the greats.  Those weird little Season 7 Drag Race queens - who didn't even win - were now featured artistes.  This must be what it feels like to buy a band's first album and then see them explode a few years later.  I know gay culture permeating mainstream Dutch society is hardly a revolutionary concept - even I was starting to get bored of the rainbow flags everywhere - but it was a nice reminder that not everywhere in the world has lost its mind over drag queens.  They're entertainers, Barbara, and they're not here to groom your kids.

I walked down a side road, past a restaurant called Burger Bitch because we can no longer have nice things.  A cafe had put out a board: "Why have abs when you can have Kurio's kebabs?" and here, have a link Kurio, because that sort of marketing must be supported.  There were also public urinals, cross shaped plastic depositories for those attending the events to use, because men are disgusting.

Round the front of the arena was a statue to the most famous Dutch player of all, Johan Cruijff, the man the stadium was named after.  There'd been calls to dedicate the stadium to him from the start, but the City of Amsterdam has - in my opinion, very sensible - rules against naming items after living people.  You can't risk the person turning out to be a later in life arsehole - imagine if there was a JK Rowling Bridge or a Right Said Fred Park or an Elon Musk Penitentiary (actually I would support that one).  After Cruijff died, however, the family gave permission for it to be renamed in his honour (and please note that I'm using the correct Dutch spelling of his surname, not the internationally used version of Cruyff).  

I have to be honest - the stadium's not a looker.  While the Amsterdam Olympic Stadium is a classic design, one that was highly influential throughout the world, the Johann Cruijff ArenA is a hulk, a big heavy lump.  A retractable roof means it has strong braces arcing over the top and much of its exterior was covered with commercial advertising.  It has none of the charm or elegance of, say, Anfield, though I will say the experience of arriving and departing and the immediate environs are infinitely better.  I'm looking forward to all those Eurogays who fell for Liverpool during Eurovision heading to the city again for Taylor Swift and then having to deal with the Sheil Road Circular and the somewhat "earthy" pubs outside.

It was while I was stood there among happy families who'd just paid twenty three Euros for a pair of socks in the club shop that I realised I'd not taken a picture in front of the station sign.  It's no exaggeration to say my stomach lurched in horror.  That's how tired I was - I was forgetting the essentials of my trip.  I'd been so keen to take a picture of the stadium when I left the station I'd completely forgotten about it.  I dashed back, walking twice as fast, a slight sense of panic inside being quashed by the reassurance that I would soon sort it.  Imagine I had got home to England, downloaded all the photos... and realised one sign was missing.  It would have been a tragedy.

Phew.

Now I had to trek back the way I came, past those same smiling families, only a bit sweatier and more panic ridden than I was before.  On the way I passed the ArenA's other station, tucked round the back and simply called Halte Amsterdam ArenA.  This is a single platform, only accessible from the direction of Diemen Zuid, which exists purely to separate, shall we say, contentious fans from one another.  If there's a game between Ajax and one of its fiercer rivals, the other station can be brought into use, allowing the away fans into the stadium via a purpose built bridge that keeps them well apart from the home fans.  

I hate that we have effectively normalised this behaviour.  That we have, as a society, simply accepted that if you get a load of football fans together they might fight and attack one another, and what we should do is build physical barriers and architectural get outs to mitigate the damage.  I bet Trixie and Katya's fans didn't have to be corralled and guarded in case a tranche of manic Violet Chachki supporters came running over the hill, ready to pulverise them with sharpened stiletto heels.

A walk past more football pitches brought me to Strandvliet station, ArenA's little brother and a handier station to use if you don't want to go anywhere near the commercial quarter.  Much like Sandhills will soon be to the new Everton stadium, Strandvliet was a quiet station that got a massive tourist attraction dropped on its doorstep.  They hastily rebuilt it to accommodate the crowds, with a special entrance for match days - something I sadly don't think is going to happen at Sandhills.  No, that's not fair; apparently it's going to get a special Fan Queuing Area.  So that's alright then.

One thing I forgot to mention about the refurb of the Oostlijn stations was the coloured glass entrance.  Above the open front, a high window was put in with abstract glass colours.  It let more light into the ticket hall and also gave each station its own identity.  At Strandvliet there were rainbow colours, which extended to the windows over the escalator as you ascended to the track.

Duivendrecht came into existence because of its location.  There wasn't anything here until 1993; the trains went on to Van de Madeweg, which was known as Duivendrech Centraal because, well, it was in the middle of Duivendrecht.  However, the Ringspoorbaan - a rail line from Schiphol across the south of the city - was constructed in the early 90s, and at the point where it met the metro line, they built an interchange.

It very much feels like a station that was constructed because they thought they should, rather than there being a specific need for it.  It's big and airy and full of glass and steel, but it doesn't feel like a hub.  I got off the train with one other person, who went down and through the gates alongside me and waited outside to be picked up by a friend.  He looked at me a little askew, as though he was surprised to see anyone else there.

There's space for buses outside, and a park and ride, but both were unpopular with the public.  Eurolines operate coaches from here, but that's about it.  I walked outside and took my picture under the ostentatious sign.

The road out of the station complex is long and straight and really quite dull.  I think it says a lot about the amount of pedestrian usage it gets that a tree had fallen across the footpath and nobody had thought to move it.  It had been there long enough for most of its green leaves to turn brown.  The highlight was a heron, which stood on the path and watched me approach with a certain amount of arrogance.  It didn't seem inclined to move, as though I encroaching on his territory, and I was within a metre or two and wondering if it was possible or even wise to pet a heron when he lifted his wings and lazily flew off and into the trees.  

I was deposited on a huge junction with a massive depot for the postal service, but I turned right, past small units and car dealerships.  The grinding engines of the city.  I crossed another street, and then swore, quite loudly.

I'd been here before.  A few hours ago, in fact.  I'd thought I was simply in another industrial estate but no, there was that cash and carry again, and there were the pictures of food again, and then I was passing under the motorway with the lollipops painted on the supports and the big silver sewage machine was up ahead.  

I felt terribly disheartened.  I was tired and sweaty and grumbly, and now here I was on the same grimy strip of traffic blasted tarmac.  It was my own fault of course; if I'd turned left out of Van der Madeweg station this morning, I would've gone a far more interesting route.  I could've gone through a housing estate where all the streets were named after space - Lunaweg and Meteoor and Astronautenweg - and maybe gone to the Duivendrecht precinct on Telstarweg.  Then the metro junction and the pumping station would've been a nice surprise in the afternoon.  I'd planned badly.

I crossed the road, going between gaps in the traffic rather than pushing the button, because I was knackered and dejected.  The road shadowed the metro line, and I passed a group of enthusiastic looking young people in hi-vis jackets and helmets being marshalled by a man from the GVB; I wondered if they were engineering students, or apprentices with the transport network.  They were far too pretty to be fellow train nerds.

Two men stopped their conversation as I passed, leaning on their parked BMWs and watching me suspiciously, pausing in whatever illicit trade they were engaged in.  I feigned disinterest, while secretly wanting to know everything about what they were up to, and walked up to the station at the end of the road.

Overamstel was added to the network in the 90s, when the Amstelveen tram-train line came into existence, and now it's a handy spot to change between the green 50 and the orange 51.  We'd moved off the Oostlijn now, onto the newer line I'd mainly collected the day before, and so it didn't get the same refurb.  This meant, sadly, no tiled station name.  Instead I had to put up with a shiny one under the viaduct.

I promise you that says Overamstel up there.  I didn't know the sunshine was exactly on it when I took the photo.  Look, I've fiddled with the colours, and you can clearly see a stel.

Once again, if you want me to go back and get a proper photo of the sign, feel free to send cash to my Ko-fi.

This was it.  One more train journey and I'd have done it.  Every station on the Amsterdam Metro, collected, visited, photographed.  Two days and a lot of walking.  I was tired but exhilarated.  This was genuinely one of the best things I have done in my life (Reader's Voice: Jesus Christ) and I enjoyed every second of it.  In some ways, I didn't want it to end.  In others, I was glad it was over.

Towers and glass told me I was back in the business district of the city.  This was Amsterdam Rai, the station for the conference complex I'd been to a million years ago when I did the Nord-Zuidlijn.  The 52 passes right underneath Rai station but they didn't build an interchange, instead putting Europaplein station directly outside the convention centre and removing the lengthy walk passengers on the 50 and 51 needed to take.  

It was another rail/metro hub, though rather better used than Duivendrecht.  I followed the crowds down, thinking of how I'd shared a lift with two of the delegates for the dementia conference at the RAI in the hotel that morning, and they had studiously avoided making eye contact, even though they were both wearing lanyards showing they were going the same place.  I walked out into the road outside the station, raised my camera, and took my last Amsterdam station selfie.

Heart

 

I have a superpower.  This probably won't come as a surprise to most of you.  You'll have observed my dark features and thick black glasses and schlubby dress style and thought, "obviously nobody would look like that deliberately, unless they were trying to craft a Clark Kent-esque secret identity."  And while it's true that removing my glasses does have the power to grant invisibility - in the sense that I can't see a bloody thing - that's not what I actually mean.  My superpower is being in the right place at exactly the wrong time.  

I had saved Centraal Station for a special visit, rather than simply collecting it with the rest of the Noord-Zuid line, because it's special.  It's Amsterdam Centraal.  It's one of the great European rail termini, like Paris's Gare de Nord, or Helsinki Central, or whichever is your favourite London station (this is a surprisingly fraught topic of discussion which I will avoid getting involved in).  The last time I'd been here, in 2006, the station square had been a churned up mess due to construction of the new metro line.  You couldn't stop and linger and appreciate it. 

I got off the M50 and headed up, through the large shared metro mezzanine space, to an escalator bank that would carry me up to the Station Island.  I got out, turned round to view the famous frontage, and swore.

Apparently, no sooner had the city of Amsterdam finished building its new metro out front, than ProRail (the Dutch Network Rail) moved in to start rebuilding it.  They had a scheme to improve it at track and concourse level, replacing bridges, adding capacity, expanding passenger access points.  All marvellous ideas I absolutely support.  I'm not sure why they couldn't have waited until after I had visited to do it, however.  That's very selfish of them.

Centraal opened in 1889 and marked the point where Amsterdam moved away from being a naval town and embraced the modern world.  Initial suggestions for a railway station had pointed to the south, somewhere below the canal rings, but the government instead chose to build the station as the city's bullseye.  They constructed a series of islands for the new terminus, which, along with the lines heading into it, would mean the Ij was permanently divided from the city as a whole.

It was outrageous, controversial, and brilliant.  You'd never get away with it today.  It cut off the water from Amsterdam but it replaced it with the future: the railway.  Trains were now at the literal heart of the city.  The roads, the canals, the flow of life all pointed towards the station.  Similarly, when you arrived, you were right there, in the midst of it all - none of this London nonsense of abandoning you on the Euston Road.  And to accommodate it, the architect Pierre Cuypers built an elaborate showcase for everything that was great about the Netherlands - a proud showcase of its power and wonder.

I went inside and into the middle of the refurbishment works.  The entrance hall had been stripped of all features and the columns were covered in protective boards.  They were very nice boards, decorated with delicate pottery designs, but they weren't exactly what I was here for.  It felt oppressive and dark.  Not the cathedral of the railways I'd wanted.

I was going to catch a train here - of course I was - so I went through the barriers and into the undercroft to find my platform.  I've got a complaint here, by the way.  I was going to a small station in Amsterdam, not a major destination, but I couldn't find any way of establishing which train it was.  The screens at the base of each platform only announced principal stops, not the little one in between; it was as if the destination board at Lime Street announced the Manchester train would stop at, say, Huyton and Newton-le-Willows, but forgot to mention Edge Hill and Wavertree Technology Park and all the ones in between.  I had to check my GVB app (which is, by the way, superb) to find which train I should be getting and what platform it was on.  Only when I was actually up the stairs did I get confirmation that, yes, this train would be stopping where I needed to go.

(I will also add it's entirely possible that I misread every single departure board because I am quite thick).

Of course, none of that mattered when I reached the platform, because I was suddenly in Centraal proper.  Now I had the enormous curve of the train hall roof arching over me.  I had people dashing about.  I had trains.  Now it felt like a truly epic building.

Centraal has two of these barrel shaped roofs, arching over the railway tracks (a third was added alongside the Noord-Zuid line to accommodate a new bus station but that's boring old buses so I'm not really bothered).  I was surprised I was the only one gawping in wonder.  I wanted to stop the people clattering about and say, look at it!  Look how beautiful it is!

Great stations inspire you.  It's about more than being a place to get a train.  It's a world of its own, a spot to wow and show off.  A great station should welcome you off the train and subtly say, yep, you've arrived.  Bet you can't wait to explore, can you?  I loved it.  I loved being a part of it and watching the whirl of passengers and engines, the shifts, the flows.  This is why I love visiting stations.  This is why I have this slightly weird hobby.

Amsterdam Centraal was noisy and busy and exciting.  Trains flowed in from across the continent - on the opposite platform was the red and white log of the Deutsche Bahn; I could've caught a train to Paris or London from here if I wanted (and, in the case of London, if I had a rather amount of cash in my wallet).  That won't last forever.  The Zuidasdok Project will create enough space at Zuid for all the international trains to be relocated there; they'll be able to speed through on high speed lines rather than being forced to use slower lines for the last few kilometres to get to Centraal.  It's a shame because you'll lose the drama of arrival - even after the rebuild Zuid won't compete with Amsterdam Centraal.  Tourists won't have as compelling a reason to come here, but I hope they will.  I hope they'll come just to see it.  It's a treasure, a jewel, and I'll have to return in about fifteen years time and see it when it's finally done.  If I'm lucky.

The Future's Bright - The Future's Orange

Here I was, back where I started, back at Zuid, the beginning and end of the M52.  The underground line surfaced and terminated on an embankment beneath those same fractured skyscrapers.  The station only came into existence in 1978 when a new southerly line was built across Amsterdam.  Wonderful though Centraal is, its position between the city and the sea meant there wasn't much room for expansion, and super-fast trains would have to trek through the suburbs to get there.  Zuid meant that trains could shoot across and through and you could easily change to the Metro to get you into town.  

It is, regretfully, not a looker.  In the 1970s "integrated transport" meant "wedge the station in the middle of a motorway".  The A10 splits either side of the platforms, lanes going in each direction while you totter above them; it feels distancing, like you're away from the town.  Worse, when you head down and through the ticket gates, you're in a dark underpass.

This is all going to change.  You might be sitting there, wondering how you improve a station in such a restricted position.  Perhaps a new ticket office over the top?  A glass roof?  Some trees?  The Dutch are far more ambitious.  They have a scheme called Amsterdam ZuidAs, which makes pretty much every infrastructure in the UK over the past twenty years look pathetic.  

The Zuidasdok Project will create more space for Amsterdam Zuid by putting the entire motorway in tunnels.  Three lanes of traffic in each direction will be pushed into tunnels over three kilometres long - complete with exits for the S108 and S109 trunk roads - and the cars will simply disappear from sight.  Zuid's tracks and platforms will then be rationalised and expanded.  There will be a new entrance from Benjamin Brittenstraat.  They can put glass roofs in to allow light into that dark space underneath.  The trams and buses will be redirected to stop right outside, in new, tree lined areas surrounding the station.  It will, in short, be bloody amazing.  It'll take a while - the northern tunnel isn't projected to open until 2035, and obviously they can't do anything on the surface until it's gone.

It's hard not to look at this brilliant, ambitious scheme from this side of the North Sea and feel intense envy.  My journeys around the West Midlands have taken me under a lot of motorways.  Gigantic viaducts slice up the city into sections, fractures that divide districts, noise and pollution and constant movement over your head.  Imagine having the ambition to put some of those in tunnels.  Just a couple of miles here and there.  Buried beneath the ground and replaced with smaller boulevards for local traffic.  Parkland.  Greenery.  Somewhere to breathe and connect neighbourhoods.  You could perhaps - and I'm thinking really ambitiously now - lay down some tracks on the top and run a tramway so that people also have access to good public transport.  

It's science fiction of course because the UK doesn't do that kind of thing.  You try and build a high speed railway and it takes twenty years to get a spade in the ground and even as it's being built it gets bits lopped of it.  Investing money in making places better, well, that's awful isn't it?  Where's the profit?  Where's the value for money in simply making life better for people?  The only way this kind of scheme would happen in Britain would be if they could work out a way to do it in London and then build a load of hideously overpriced apartments on the top that they could flog to Russian oligarchs.

Of course, I didn't know all this while I was in the Netherlands.  All I saw was a slightly grubby station surrounded by some bright yellow hoardings with a lot of writing in Dutch.  I made a mental note to look it up when I got back to England.  I sort of wish I hadn't.  

North of the station is the Zuidplein, a public space at the heart of Amsterdam's World Trade Center (sic).  It's a Canary Wharf-esque plaza surrounded by fast lunch spots and shops office workers can buy essentials from - a Starbucks, an Albert Heijn, a Sissy-Boy.  (The Dutch are tremendously good English speakers, but having a major clothing chain called Sissy-Boy makes me wonder if we should quietly take them to one side and explain some colloquials to them).  It being a Sunday, most of them were closed.  A rainbow decorated set of steps took you up to the buses and trams but I walked underneath to a raggedy green square of land where a woman rested her feet in the bubbling water feature.

The Zuidplein isn't just a space for perambulation - it's also the lid on an underground bicycle park with space for 620 ordinary bikes, 271 cargo bikes, and 400 public bikes for hire.  I nipped down for a quick look and it was remarkable; storage everywhere you looked, clean and efficient, with a spot for repairs and accessed via travelators from the street.  Parking is free for the first 24 hours.  

Yes, I know.  

Minervalaan was lined with elegant modern houses.  White blocks with irregular fronts and subtle detailing.  An electric charging point in every driveway and glass facing.  Kevin McCloud would have been in raptures about all of them, and I was too.  The only part that worried me was all those flat roofs.  The Netherlands isn't much drier than the UK; surely you'd want something that would let the rain wash away?  Perhaps I'm just sensitive because I am still arguing with a roofer about a bay window he was supposed to fix but which still leaks when the weather is bad.  I'm at the point where I think all roofs should be angled for the sanity of their occupants.

I'd intended crossing the canal at the end of the street, but the bridge was closed for refurbishment, so instead I diverted onto the lawns that ran down to the water and followed the path to the Parnassusweg.  

It couldn't have felt more Sunday morning.  I was accompanied on the path by dog walkers and joggers.  There was a calm silence in the air.  I glanced up at a balcony and saw a woman leaning on her balustrade, a cigarette in her hand, smoking away the night before.  A man unloaded his recycling - an awful lot of glass bottles - into one of the communal bins that pepper the street corners.  They look like ordinary bins, but conceal deep underground reserves - meaning there's no need for large ugly wheely bins for the apartments.  

It was quite, quite delightful.  I loved every second of it.  Imagine waking up to a view of the canal, curling up on your window seat, cradling a coffee.  Having all these amenities and links a short walk away.  I wondered how much it would cost to move here, to sell up and start all over again, then I remembered Brexit and the end of Freedom of Movement and once again, fuck you Leavers.  

I was headed for a historic Amsterdam sight.  Even though my interest in sport is actually in the minus figures, I do love a stadium.  I'm not sure why.  I think it boils down to me loving any large bit of infrastructure.  The ultimate stadium is, of course, an Olympic Stadium, and Amsterdam hosted the games in 1928.  They built a stadium in what is known as the Amsterdam School of architecture.  This was a style that you can see throughout the city, and the Olympic Stadium brought it to the attention of international architects.

The Amsterdam School favours brick, used in intricate patterns and with curves and flights to form elegant forms.  The Olympic Stadium is perhaps the largest and most prominent example of the style and, thanks to a restoration twenty years ago, it looks much as it did during the Games.

I wandered round the plaza that fronts the stadium, the only person there.  For many years it was used as a football stadium, with Ajax using it for international games; I thought back to the lovely quiet streets I'd just walked down and reconsidered whether I'd perhaps want to live here when an event was ongoing.  It's now an athletics stadium once more.

The Amsterdam School spread across Europe in the 1930s and was particularly influential on Charles Holden, the architect of many London Tube stations; the likes of Arnos Grove and Cockfosters on the Piccadilly Line share their aesthetics with large expanses of red brick and clean lines.  Unfortunately, one of the other countries that really took to the Amsterdam School was Germany, and for some reason the style fell out of favour with the rest of the world after they embraced it in the 1930s.  Nazis ruin everything.

I returned to the main road and walked south for my next station.  With the 52 completed, it was now time to take on another line.  The M50 and M51 curl round the west of the city from Zuid, almost but not quite looping back to Centraal Station.  

The blue was done.  It was time for the green and orange.