The Dutch railway company NS will say goodbye to its oldest Sprinter trains on Saturday. This will also put an end to trains without air conditioning and toilets, NS announced on Friday.
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jvhSource: BELGIAN
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The first Spinters (officially Stadgewestelijk Materieel or SGM) were put into service 46 years ago. The NS bought a total of ninety such trainsets in the period 1975-1983. They mainly drove around the cities of The Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam.
New Sprinter trains (Sprinter New Generation) arrived from the end of 2018, and they started to replace the SGMs. In recent months, 25 of those old Sprinters have been driving around, but on Saturday the very last train of that type will make its last journey, between Zwolle and Utrecht. “After the farewell to the last SGM, every NS train has air conditioning and a toilet. Many travelers will remind the train of the lack of it,” according to NS.
Many parts of the decommissioned trainsets are reused or recycled. For example, 800 train windows were dismantled for the construction of a bicycle shed near Eindhoven station. One SGM goes to the Railway Museum in Utrecht.
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