The Hague Public Transport Museum Reopens
Magyarul a pendolino.blog.hu-n.
The Haags Openbaar Vervoer Museum (founded in 1989) opened for visits on 21st May 2009. In the last couple of months, not only the old tram depot building was renovated, but a conference room was set up for groups and events, and the exhibition got a fresh graphical look under the name “Remise”.
A few people were already gathering around the museum building well before the 1 pm opening, as a good part of the collection van be clearly seen from the outside too (above left). Two axle and PCC tram cars, two Hague buses and a London Routemaster red double-decker bus (above right) are parking in the outside, the latter has only recently been removed from service according to the passenger information displays.
After the last tram reverse movements (as most of Hague trams are unidirectional) (above left) and bus Y-turns (above right), the museum opened its doors and four smaller rooms of models, destination panels and uniforms could be seen accompanied by a few photographs and short Dutch descriptions. The highlight of this exhibition is the tram boogie and the matching frontal section of the tram body turned over to show the joining mechanics (bottom right).
In the covered area of the depot, further trams and buses can be seen (below left), and the careful observer can even notice some model railroads on the tram seats waiting for a better time 
(below right). You can even keep an eye on the trams now via the webcam service.
Around half of the trams display the Kurhaus in Scheveningen on line 8 as their destination, which is not coincidental. A good series of revolutionary tram systems were introduced in this section before Amsterdam or Rotterdam: the horse tram (1864), the steam tram (1879) and finally the electric tram (1891). In 1927, the first “sneltam”, fast tram was introduced, having its track separated from other traffic. After WWII, the city saw the first PCC trams, grassed tracks in the seventies, later viaducts were built in the city center, even inside the Den Haag Centraal railway station building (below left).
In 2004, the tram tunnel of two stops was inagurated in the centre (above right), which allowed to convert the street level to a pedestrian area (bottom left). In 2007, two tram lines were converted to higher comfort, speed and punctuality under the brand name RandstadRail (bottom right), and these tram-trains travel as far as the neighbor city of Zoetermeer reusing a former heavy rail line. The ambitious plan of the near future is in fact the upgrade of following lines to the RandstadRail model.
The historic trams used to travel on more diversified routes, but problems of excessive wear arose from the different geometric profiles of the rails and the tram wheels. Some route restrictions had to be applied not only to museum stock but also for part of HTM’s own fleet. Hence last year, no tram rides were possible, and more replacement works are necessary to raise the restrictions.
The museum is open from May to October every Sunday 13am-5pm, he entrance fee is 3.50 euros, valid for a tram or bus journey too. The site is accessible with a short walk from Den Haag HS railway station, and if the museum leaves you curious, you can take a train to nearby Utrecht (below right) for the Dutch Railway Museum (below left).
More of my the Hague pics in Flickr.
