Historic Vught station building moves 13.6 metres in one piece
The 1868 station building at Vught is being shifted east in one piece, cellar included, to make way for a fourth track that is meant to bring more trains to the line from 2030.
The station building at Vught, dating from 1868, is being lifted and moved 13.6 metres east on Friday, together with its historic cellar. The move began at around 08:00 and is expected to take seven hours, with the building in place by mid-afternoon.
The building stands exactly where a fourth track between Den Bosch and Vught will run, sunken below ground. More trains are due to run between Meteren and Boxtel from 2030. Building around it, or demolishing and rebuilding it, was not an option: it is a rijksmonument, a national monument, and moving it in one piece preserves its monumental value.
The building weighs 720 tonnes and measures 28 metres by 9.5 metres. It is first raised and placed on a concrete structure, which acts as a kind of tray. That structure is then pushed along a sliding track in 34 strokes of 40 centimetres. The building will end up 32 centimetres lower than it is now.
The move is part of the Programma Hoogfrequent Spoorvervoer, a project of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management that has been running since 2010. It aims to run more trains on busy routes. On some routes the target is six trains per hour; most routes now have two to four.
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rijksmonument
A rijksmonument is a building, structure or object of national historical, architectural or cultural value that is listed in the Dutch national monuments register. Because of this status, any change to it, including moving or demolishing it, requires permission under heritage law, so it cannot simply be rebuilt or removed.
Programma Hoogfrequent Spoorvervoer
The Programme for High-Frequency Rail Transport is a project of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management that aims to run more trains on the busiest railway routes in the Netherlands. It works on the capacity of the rail network, including through infrastructure works such as extra tracks and station changes, so that more trains per hour can operate on those routes.