It was a hugely impressive sight – the succession of eleven gigantic trailers on the otherwise empty A10 Zuid, waiting in the early hours of Saturday morning. They had all transported parts of the steel roof for the platform alongside tracks 3 and 4. Its permanent location will be above the new Brittenpassage, the additional passenger tunnel at Amsterdam Zuid station. During the previous night, they had arrived as part of a special convoy, with each column extending across almost three lanes, from the steel manufacturing plant in Almelo; such a mammoth transport operation would simply not be possible in the daytime. There’s a good reason for that – each platform roof measures 16.5 by 7 metres and weighs some 13,000 kilos. By way of comparison, that is about the weight of two adult elephants.
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Hoisting over three train tracks
One by one, employees of the Nieuw-Zuid building consortium (BCNZ, consisting of Mobilis, Boskalis, and Van Gelder) hoisted the huge beasts from the A10 Zuid to their position, over three train tracks and overhead power cables at Amsterdam Zuid station. Once they had been moved into position, dozens of construction workers were on hand to fit the roof elements. And while they were doing that, the next lorry arrived with a new set of parts, and so on. There was no time to lose, because the whole ritual was repeated on Saturday night: in the early-morning dawn on Sunday, another eight lorries from Almelo were waiting with a fresh load of platform roof components.
The spectacle attracted plenty of interest
Apart from one minor hiccup, which saw the hoisting operation halted for an hour or so because of a storm, the whole operation went like a dream. The final part of the platform roof was hoisted into position and attached during the course of Sunday afternoon. It was an amazing spectacle, and attracted many viewers. Dozens of people had signed up for guided tours that we had organised through our Zuidas-Zuidasdok information centre. From our construction site between the train tracks, the fans of our project had a clear view of the work and were given detailed explanations by our experts of what was going on.
No trains
Because of the major hoisting operation over the train tracks on 14 and 15 June, Amsterdam Zuid station was closed to all train traffic. However, it did remain reachable for those travelling by bus and metro. Early on Monday morning, the motorway and the tracks were reopened, right on schedule. At the Amstel interchange, Rijkswaterstaat carried out extensive maintenance work at the weekend, including asphalting. This work also passed without any hitches.
Brittenpassage
Amsterdam Zuid station will be getting a new passenger tunnel: the Brittenpassage. This is necessary because the current station entrance, the Minervapassage, has scarcely enough capacity to deal with the numbers of train and metro passengers. The numbers of users of public transport is expected to continue to rise, to more than 250,000 by 2030. During the autumn of 2025, we will be hoisting more platform roof elements above the Brittenpassage – specifically, to the platforms for tracks 1 and 2. The extra tunnel is part of the renovation of Amsterdam Zuid station.
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