Why are these slow trains called Sprinter? 

Honestly Thom you should become an actor. It's the type of transit content I never knew I needed. But it's fantastic 🤩

Sprinter: short distance, fast pace (compare pacers in the UK) usually light(er)weight stock with high accelleration..

In the USA, we have Stucktrains, Oldtrains, and Randomtrains.

10:40 I feel so sorry for her, happened a lot to me as well...

And then DB realized that you can't make every intercity train an ICE without devaluing the brand, so they invented the ICE Sprinter. Basically NS has slow Sprinters and DB has fast Sprinters.

I’ve never been to the Netherlands yet but I’m happy that NS decided to keep the iconic navy and yellow livery. When I think of Dutch trains a big yellow VIRM speeding past tulips fields and windmills is what automatically pops into my head.

Good example from the area I grew up in southern Germany: my city was roughly an hour from the next greater city. Both cities were linked by an Interstate Highway and a double tracked electrified main line from the railroad. All kinds of passenger and freight trains used that line, and although the high-speed trains weren't going at high speed, they were still faster: - ICE = Inter City Express, a high-speed long distance train which goes directly from central station to central station without stopping in between. Took roughly 55 minutes. - IC = Inter City, still a high-speed long distance train. It stops only once at the largest town between both cities, roughly two thirds down the line. Took maybe 58 minutes - RE = Regional Express, a train serving a greater regional area. It stops 3 times between both cities, serving the largest town and some large villages. Travel time 1 hour 2 minutes - RB = Regional Train, a train serving a smaller regional area. It stops at each and every station along the line, in every small village, adding up to 11 stops. However that train doesn't even go all the way to the other large city, but only to that town two thirds down the line. In that town you have to get off the regional train and get onto the commuter train - S-Bahn = commuter train, a local train serving a greater metro area of the largest cities. They stop at each and every station just like regional trains, but they run on a much tighter schedule. Travel time of regional train + commuter train: 1 hour 32 minutes

This is not the only slow Sprinter. Sprinter is also some Siemens Desiro trains in California and Sprinter is also a locomotive that hauls Amtrak trains that are not as fast as Acela

Thanks for this video. I went back to my photos from my trip to Amsterdam last year (unexpected layover due to weather). And realize the train we took must have been a sprinter. Had no idea about any of the Dutch trains. We didn't do any research. We took the train, now i know it was Sprinter, from Schipol after checking into the airport hotel to the Central Station for just a few hours. It was amazing and perfect, as they say about Dutch train travel.

Ahh, this is exactly why I thought they were called "Sprinters" -- they basically sprint from each small station to the next. And yes, I've enjoyed my two visits to NL and using the trains...although the visits were two decades apart. I like watching the Railcam Netherlands live-feed from Mierlo-Hout Helmond, since Sprinters stop at the small station on-camera, but the ICs just speed on through.

Honestly both the official version and Thom’s version of the Sprinter sound logical in my mind. Great Work Thom!

The version I remember was that the NS thought 'stopping train' sounded to negative, and too easy to make jokes off as they were having serious problems getting their trains to run on time or even to run at all. So they came up with a less negative name and chose sprinter. Sprinters were known for not having toilets on board. When the NS decided to pull the original sprinters off their commuter / metro routes, and onto longer distance routes, that started to give problems. Yes subways and trams don't have toilets, but you're generally only on them for half an hour max. But the new routes, some people rode from start to finish so were sometimes on the train for an hour or longer. The conducter ended up having a stash of plastic bags so passenger could do an emergency bio-stop on those routes in the conductor's room... I think they just finished retro-fitting in toilets on all the sprinter trains that came without them, and the new version came with them build-in.

I love their rail transportation. They have a couple of guys that have channels and do cab rides.

Great job and analysis, Thom!

I really like the German terminology and service types. It’s almost universally used across the country and pretty easy to remember. For those who don’t know: We have - U-Bahn = Metro/Light Rail in cities - S-Bahn = Commuter Rail connecting cities and suburbs, typically red with a white stripe DB livery - Regionalbahn (RB) = like Stoptrein, also typically red and white - Regionalexpress (RE) = like Sprinters, also red and white - Intercity (IC) = the slower and worse long distance rail, but in DB long distance livery white with red stripe - Intercityexpress (ICE) = I guess I don’t need to explain those…

Well Pacers don't exactly keep up to pace either.

1:16 De brug bij Zutphen herken ik direct, ik kom daar zo vaak langs

LOVE the history you include!

Even in the UK they call their DMUs for regional (yes, regional not intercity) services Sprinters

The SGM is such a sweet sprinter!!! Thanks for explaining this awesome transit system to all of us!!!

I'd love to see a video on Randstadrail!

As an occasional user of trains in the Netherlands I obviously had some misconceptions about the train types. Thanks for clearing this up.

When I was in England, they had stopping trains and fast trains. Express trains to them sounded like trains that carried freight in baggage cars.

Here I am thinking that you were going to talk about the Sprinter in San Diego LMAO.

Thank you for the wonderful video! A future video on the RandstadRail and the conversion to tram-trains sounds very interesting, particularly as many cities throughout the world are building new tram networks that could perhaps become tram-train networks

With buses limited stop ones often have an X for express in front of the number ie/X10 but occasionally you see it the other way around ie/22X.

I've taken a Sprinter filling in as a Intercity twice now. Utrecht to Rotterdam a few weeks ago was the 2nd time. Humming along at 140mh!

These used to be called stoptrein (stopping train), but they marketed it as sprinter. There is only a few stoptreinen left in the country, those are privatized trains not run by the NS. There used to be sneltrein which is in between an intercity and sprinter (stoptrein at the time), and intercity has always been called intercity.

After my (very) short visit to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport on the way to my vacation to Barcelona, I’ve had a newfound fascination with the Dutch railway system.

Sprinter is a pretty common name for train stuff in general, here in Melbourne we have the Sprinter diesel railmotor, which isn't very fast, doesn't accelerate especially quickly, and often goes longer distance on the V/Line network, though the "Metro™" Stony Point line is actually a fairly short sprint, they do _blazing fast_ 30 minute headway in peak for 2 trains... only in the peak direction

I think one reason for reducing the service types, is that most tracks are pretty much at their limit. More service types reduces how many of each type can ride on a certain track.

Recently, I was in an intercity train and we left the station more or less at the same time as a sprinter. The sprinter left first, but the intercity was quickly overtaking it. But then the sprinter came up to speed and clearly moved faster than the intercity. So it seems that the intercity got to mid speeds quicker, but then the sprinter either had a higher top speed or just reached the higher speeds faster. It wasn't at all what I had been expecting. I don't know if this was down to the capabilities of the trains. Both trains were making unplanned changes in their scheduling and the they had different destinations, so it might have been down to the track capabilities or just how the crew approached an unplanned situation...

Excellent good Video👍Thumbs Up 👍Best Greetings😀

Sprinter as opposed to cycling or walking

We used to have 2 servicelevels: Stoptrein (stopped at every station along its route) and Intercity, which stopped only at certain major stations. Somewhere in the late 80s the ‘Sprinter’ was introduced. It is named like that because contrary to the Stoptrain, that took about as much time to reach topspeeds as an intercity, the Sprinter could reach top speed much quicker, making it more ideal for the short distances between stops. So, there you have it. A train that ‘sprints’ to its top speed: a ‘Sprinter’.

in germany we have terms for like every type of service: Regionalbahn RB: Stopping train with very long distance S-Bahn: Stopping trains, often only used in big citys but Regional-Express RE: Basically a "Sneltrein" Regio-S-Bahn RS: i dont even know InterCity IC: Long Distance trains but also stopping at smaller stations like "[City]-Weststation" InterCityExpress ICE: Long Distance Trains with few stops, mostly only in main stations InterCityExpress-Sprinter ICE-Sprinter: ICE but it starts at one point, stops 1-2 times and then drives non stop to the destination which can be up to 5 hours

Don’t forget that Switzerland has 5 different names for the sprinter service black S-Bahn, red S-Bahn, black Regio, red Regio and Regio Express. Red are train that skip a few stops compared to the other trains. They normally come with numbers after the type except if it is a train that only runs in the peak.

I fele for that woman around the 10 min mark.. happens so much :P oh and the transition to explain sprinter was so well done!

Nowadays you see these trains all over the place. A sprinter train on an intercity service or vice versa 😅

Hello Thom, I do not know if you are aware of this, however over here in Great Britain, we have the BREL Class 150 Sprinter DMU trains, the Metro Cammell Class 156 Super Sprinter DMU trains and the BREL Class 158 Express Sprinter DMU trains. Then there is the Class 153 Super Sprinter DMU train which used to be the Class 155 Super Sprinter DMU train, however most of the Class 155 were converted from two car units to single car units, hence the change from Class 155 to Class 153. There are seven Class 155 Super Sprinter DMU trains left and these can be found operating passenger services in Yorkshire. Best wishes and take care. Kind regards, Peter Skuce, St Albans. Hertfordshire. England.

Oh, the NS corporate office in Utrecht is also pretty cool. It's a huge and beautiful 1920's office building called "the inkwell" and it has a fake flying saucer on it as an art installation.

When i saw Sprinter, i thought this was going to be a video of San Diego's north county transit train that goes from Oceanside to Escondido

to be fair, the UK also has sprinters operating on regional services (classes 150 through 159)

Funny this would drop today... I sprinted for a red line train in Portland today :)

I choose to ride the Sprinter for short journeys when visiting NL over the IC’s because I think it’s fun to make all the stops 😅 There’s not greater thrill than stopping at Krommenie-Assendelft or Gouda Goverwelle!

From 2002 to 2006 ÖBB had a train category "Sprinter" on some lines, with fewer stops than REX (Regionalexpress) and both first and second class. Since 2019, CJX (cityjet xpress) is something similar, though with no first class: Offering shorter travel times on select routes without the restrictions of intercity trains (bicycles must be reserved, some local tickets not valid). When NS introduced the doubledeck intercity trains in 1994 they were called DD-IRM (Dubbeldeks-Interregiomaterieel) and at some point there was a plan to run them as IR (Interregio) but that was never put into practice, they are almost always used as Intercity since their introduction. Food service only seems to be offered on international services such as ICE and Eurostar (ex Thalys). Even the Intercity Amsterdam - Berlin lost its Bistro car (too old even after numerous modernizations, though that will come back once it is converted to ICE L Talgo as planned). I'm skeptical about using trains indifferently for short and long distance connections. There are still different needs: Trains with many stops need a lot of doors and short ways from the entrance to the seat and back without any interior separation. Tables would just be in the way. When distances are longer and stops are less frequent, the number of doors is reduced and passengers are given more space instead, there are separations between the seating areas and entrance rooms, and seating comfort as well as amenities such as tables and electric charging plugs become more important. (And food service as well, be it in the form of dining cars, minibars or automatic food dispensers.) Technically for a train with a lot of stops acceleration is important (as already seen in the SGM trains which were a lot faster than the Mat54 and Mat64 units that dominated until then). For a longer distance train that's a little less important than maximum speed. But to go 200 km/h or faster you need a lot of power, airtight doors, enhanced braking systems, better aerodynamics ... Among Dutch trains the ICNG is the first that can go 200 and there aren't a lot of lines allowing that yet. I like that they keep the yellow accents in the livery but there should still be a distinction between fast and slow trains. In Germany that's very emphasized with most fast trains being white and most slow trains being red.

I literally thought this was a video about the San Diego Sprinter train

Today i realized that i am old enough to remmember our trains rocking Adidas stripes, and damn i feel nostalgic and old now.

Keep doing the skits they are funny

the term stoptrein is still used by NS when older intercity stock runs as stoptrein on sections like hoorn kersenboogerd-enkhuizen where they still call them either intercity(because after reaching hoorn station they switch to IC from stoptrein or stoptreinen altho its more because they cant run sprinters along the line together with IC so the IC has to serve all stations due to NS and these days prorail never bothering to double track the line to enkhuizen altho they did double track hoorn-hoorn kersenboogerd to make better use of the siding at kersenboogerd for turning around the sprinters without taking up space at hoorn

Right now because of the SNG and Flirt trains, SLT trains are used more frequently for Intercity services

Regional Bahn stop everywhere and might go shorter routes. Like the RMV RB51 Frankfurt to Wächtersbach. RB51 is the same trainset, which serves the RegionalExpress RE50 from Frankfurt to Fulda. Same Dosto bilevel trains. But the smaller stops like Wirtsheim and Hanau Wolfgang are left out here. In Europe, the train categories are regulated and harmonized by CIV rules.

It's true, the same goes for sprinter trains in oceanside california

id love to see a video ab the Rotterdam metro that was sent to the Hauge, kinda of crazy a metro runs thru farmland.

I thank you for this great video, giving deep insights into the dutch way of passenger railroad operations and their history, including those important informations like the invention of the "starre dienstregeling" with every-hour-on-the-same-minute departures. Even before "spoorslag 70" - when the trains changed their color to a bright yellow and beneath the timetables a lot of other things changed, there were some hourly services on a repeating schedule pattern introduced as early as in 1938 - but at first only on selected very important lines where electrification had taken place and the then new "stroomlijnmaterieel" was introduced. Please allow me one annotation about one of the historic trains shown in this video: The train at 4:35 is not a dutch one, but a german steam loco, operating at the Historische Eisenbahn in Frankfurt am Main, next to Eiserner Steg station.

I love Sprinters. Every time I come to visit my friends in the Netherlands I love to ride one of these trains. Even if they stop at all stations in my opinion they look better than the old Intercity trains. Actually I think they have also upgraded the Intercity trains in the Netherlands but I have not yet ridden one of these new trains yet. So for now I prefer the way these trains look compare to the Intercity ones.

Railway classifications are always tricky. Something that's happening your larger neighbor is IC services getting scrapped and replaced by ICE, all it does is water down the premium brands and leave you with two options: Always expensive but often not really fast and the other option is cheap but takes eons to get places. I'm a big fan of proper train classification tho, it beats systems like the UK where its just the 17:26 to Woolbridge-upon-River without any further information.

Sadly that’s the case for LA A and E lines. They’re very slow and stop for tens of stations. Why no express trains in LA? So sad!

you also have the ICD (intercity direct), normaly the dutch rails runs at max 140km/h but the ICD also goes on the high speed tracks at 160km/h on some parts of there line (the high seed track in the netherlands cant go up high at all i think the max for all trains is 200km/h cause the ground in the netherlands isnt fit for any higer speeds)

As someone who has worked in the depicted HQ - quite accurate! ;)

The class 150 stopping trains were called "Sprinters" by British Rail...

hai, leuke video! eerlijk, wanneer mogelijk neem ik liever een IC ipv een sprinter - zelfs als mijn reis daardoor langer duurt rond het einde van de video had je het erover dat de NS de distinctie tussen sprinter en IC wil vervagen.. Ik vraag me af hoeveel dat meespeelde bij het bestellen van de ICNGs, die voelen namelijk aan als.. sprinters.. in de slechtste zin van het woord (luid, oncomfortabel, korte bakken, weinig capaciteit) - ik word er niet bepaald enthousiast van

9:57 not just the NS, water connection between Rotterdam and the sea is called “de nieuwe waterweg” even though it was opened in 1872.

1:00 Thats quite a lucky fetch. Most of the times, you don't see CP 2600's running IC trains. Then again, that might be the Interregional train from Figueira da Foz/Porto-São Bento to Valença, in that case it would be quite common seeing that they are the only locomotive that runs that service.

After the Sprinter NG, they will introduce the Sprinter Max.

Thank you for mentioning the german system. I want to add a "few" things: It is kinda messy as well when you have systems with an S-Bahn, Regionalbahn and Regionalexpress, all doing basicly the same but slightly different. In Berlin it clear cut. S-Bahn has its own infractructure (build on the third rail system), Regionalbahnen link to the surrounding countryside and Regionalexpress connects cities that are farther away but still kinda in the same region. Then you go to Munich or Frankfurt where the S-Bahn is basicly a kind of Regionalbahn (using the same infrastructure and overhead wires like all other trains) and the Regionalbahnen behave like S-Bahnen or Regionalexpress sometimes. And that is just the local traffic. Which is usually done by by several companies within the Deutsche Bahn concern, which are themselves united (somehow) under the umbrella of a regional subcompany of the local traffic division of the DB, DB Regio) or even a private operator. Long distance trains are operated by whole separate company within Deutsche Bahn, DB Fernverkehr. At that is ignoring all the local public transport companies, owned by cities or counties, which are kinda linked as well.... It is a mess, escepially for foreigners... At least there is some kind of a unified fair structure in this whole mess and you can use the DB Navigator APP everywhere in germany. THOM, are the fair structures between NS and the private operators linked. Do you have something similar to the Deutschlandticket? Also, I am still stunned when you told as some videos ago that the Netherlands did not bother to open up the whole network, but only branch lines for local operators. While NS kept the mainlines. IMO that is not a fair competition.

It's definitely true that the difference between services is not all that clear. Some intercities run like sprinters, stopping at every station. At the very least, the intercity to Vlissingen did until recently, when an actual sprinter service was added. One thing you didn't mention in the video was the intercity direct, which does run like a faster intercity. That being said, intercity direct only runs in a few places and sometimes runs the exact same route as the normal intercity does.

Aw Sprinter is in San Diego too but word on the street is that it isn't fast as expected too. That's what I heard from a friend. Also in France I think it's called TER and RER. Found out about the French stuff because I am 1. a diehard railfan 2. Other train RU-vidrs talk about it.

sprinter is a really good name when you think about the passenger. sprinting is quickly traversing short distances. the sprinter is a perfect train for this. because there are many more of them. in the city i lived in. there was a sprinter train in the station about 4 times more often than there is an intercity. aside from that. there are multiple stations in the city. and only one of them the intercity stopped at. so we would take the sprinter to the main station and then get on the intercity from there. the sprinter is the sprinter because we used it to quickly get from our homes to the city centre. or to neighboring villages. it was much faster than taking the bus. or even the car.

Quick correction, the NS has not always been a private company. The NS is what became after the rebranding of the SS (the StaatsSpoorwegen, not the other SS) and was a semi-governmental company and got completely privatised over the years 1995 to 2002. This is when they also stopped their freight services.

Woerden Utrecht you have that 3 stations are skipped

Originally the train types (diesel locs, diesel trains, electric locs and electric trains) had a different color each. Dark-green, a bit lighter green, grey, azure-blue, dark blue, light blue, red, brown, turquoise, lilac to indicate if they were diesel for passengers, diesel for freight, electric for passengers, electric for freight, if they were locs, a complete trainset or freight cars. Older trains would also have a 'moustache' like mat '54 aka 'Hondekop' (lit. doghead) or 'angel wings' like mat '36 aka 'Blauwe Engel' (lit. Blue Angel and a special one called 'The Camel'). If you want to see pictures, just search for the Dutch names: Mat '24/Blokkendoos, Mat '34, Mat '36/blauwe engel, De Kameel (which transported the rockband Queen at one time), mat '46/muizekop (lit. mouse head), mat '54/hondekop, mat '64/Apekop (lit. monkey head), NS 1000, NS 1100, NS 1200, NS 1300, NS 1500, NS 1600/1700/1800 (the original 1600's had the name of cities), NS 2400/2500 (there is a special one: 2530 which is called Bishop), NS 2200/2300. The NS 1400 exists only as a concept, it was never made. Then there was also the NS100/200/300 (locomotor) and NS 500/600/700 (the English class 08) nicknamed 'Hippel'.

This naming is the reason I accidentally went to another city instead of 2 stops further once

Wearing a jacket you kinda look like Dave Foley from the Canadian comic troupe/ TV show "The Kids In The Hall"

Not very much on the topic but I'm recently seeing a lot of DM90s in the NS livery in in south-eastern Poland and I think it's interesting

I mean "sprinting" is running fast for a short distance, that's exactly what the train is doing.

Well the b roll at 4:36 is definitely not from the Netherlands, this in Frankfurt Germany in front of the Eisener Steg.

It is called sprinter because it is lighter and faster than the stoptrein it replaced. Lighter means faster accelleration in both starting and stopping. It also means they are faster out of the way of intercities in places where there are no four parallel tracks.

08:28 this is not true in Zeeland the Intercity operates as a stoptrein (like the sprinters) to service smaller villages.

6:39 Alright now what is going on with that part of RandstadRail in Zoetermeer...

Please make the video on randstad rail it sounds really intresting!

Very good explanation. NS has ordered new trains from CAF. These trains are combined single and double decker trains like the German Siemens Desiro HC. The trains would fit the new NS strategy perfect.

7:16 Dang I thought Cleveland transit were weird, unusual, and I thought that the only Lightrail and Metro in one rail

The Sprinter Max? that's the generation after the 737 NG, I guess they could also call them the Neo like Airbus

"Intercity" amsterdam-vlissingen in 2021 was a great example of how not to name a train or the ic to den helder. Technically we do have a 3rd class of trains (intercity direct) but that's just an intercity that takes the hsl

Good video, but you forgot one unique train type the Netherlands has: The IntercityDirect. Which only has 4 major city stops: Amsterdam, Schiphol, Rotterdam and Breda. Which makes it a faster Intercity :)

Would you count the ICD (Intercity direct) as a third type of service? I would, so i'm a bit confused why you didn't mention it

Thank you so much for finally giving me confirmation! This always "annoyed" me. But my conclusion was the same reason stoplight became traffic lights. Speed cameras became safety cameras. The Dutch social security number used to be called sofi number (social fiscal) but needed to be changed for some reason. It is a number given to every citizen, let's call it a citizen number? No, that makes the citizens feel like a number. Let's add the word service. It is now called citizen service number or BSN (burger service number). Many people call it their BSN number and my autism really doesn't like that:-) BS number or BSN. (BSN bit is from Harry Jekkers). My mother in-law was in a committee that had a budget of over €200,000 to think of hew names for 10 things in the city, not the actual renaming, just to come up with names.

You kind of did forget 1 service. The intercity direct. Functioning as a the old intercity/super express on some routes.

Nice video! One thing: Keolis operates also with the name 'Sprinter' at the lines Kampen-Zwolle, Zwolle-Enschede and Amersfoort-Ede.

The Deutsche Bahn uses Spirnter as a name also

Trains in belgium: Local trains = stops at every station Stoptrains = close to a city and stops at every station Intercity's = stops at cities peak hour trains = rides at the bussiest moment Express trains = rides in summer to coastal cities charter trains = trains that run exceptionally extra trains = replacement train or as an extra train Touristic train = goes to tourist places Intercity tourist train = goes to tourist places in cities Service trains = for people who work at the railways

Arriva uses the word Sneltrein on some routes. So the three name system is still around and kicking in the regional game, as a lot of routes in the north (Friesland, Groningen), east (Drenthe, Overijssel) and southeast (Limburg) have routes that feature a train that stops everywhere, so a Stoptrein, and a train that doesnt stop at the small village stations but does at towns, but would be weird to call it Intercity as it stops at a lot of what arent cities and more big villages/towns. InterCity isnt used as much by regional operators as they mostly operate smaller routes, but Keolis (Blauwnet) uses it on Enschede-Zwolle. Arriva and Keolis also introduced the two letter + two number system that Germany also has, but with RS (Regionale Stoptrein), RE (Regionale Expresstrein, so confusingly, thats Sneltrein) and IC (InterCity) Adding a bit more confusion to the mix, Blauwnet seems to be unsure if RS means Regionale Stoptrein or Regionale Sprinter. The NS app says Blauwnet Sprinter. Edit: on that last one, seems the inconsistency is partially Keolis? RS23 Zwolle-Enschede and RS22 Zwolle-Kampen are called Sprinter, all others Stoptrein. However, Keolis used to operate RS20 Oldenzaal-Zutphen, which they always called Stoptrein... is the criteria diesel? Im going crazy here

I have a question concerning Dutch trains: As far as I know the maximum speed on standard tracks (non-high-speed tracks) in the Netherlands is 140km/h. Why exactly is that?

That was interesting. Always seemed odd that these were called sprinter. As for the amount of train categories, I can see the advantages of having only 2. The frequency can be kept higher than if it was 3 categories, network has less congestion, easier to plan and synchronize timetable. Transfers are very easy and painless on Dutch railways partially due to high frequency of trains.

I agree that merging the sneltrein and intercity is a shame, and I would add that removing the distinctive looks of sprinters is a detriment to travelers as well. Having a distinct look really helps you know what type of train you're about to board

Tripping your opponent is the best way to win a race.

Good advertising is everything. ☺

in the UK they have a train family called "Sprinters" they have a top speed of 75-90 mph and are cheap trains

@5:33 this dude used some footage from madurodam. Respect.