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Valkenburg Railway Station

Valkenburg Railway Station is the railway station in the town of Valkenburg in the Dutch province of Limburg. The station is located on the Maastricht - Heerlen line, known as the Heuvelland line. The station building, dating from 1853, is considered the oldest surviving station in the Netherlands. It has been a national monument since 1990 and is even in the Top 100 of the National Monuments Service. Valkenburg Station was built on behalf of the Aachen-Maastricht Railway Company, which from 1845 built the railway line from Aachen to Maastricht, the first international railway connection in the Netherlands.  The station was originally located on the Aachen - Maastricht line, but was later also connected to the line from Heerlen to Kerkrade (or "Miljoenenlijn").  In the 1970s and 1990s, additional trains (the "Valkenburg Express") ran directly from Amsterdam. In 1988 there were three regular IC trains Zandvoort – Maastricht, which had been extended to Valkenburg, and three special trains from Amsterdam. In 2024, there are connections to Kerkrade via Heerlen and Maastricht and there are also trains between Aachen and Liège, with a stop in Valkenburg (Three-Country Train). Valkenburg station is one of fifty stations in the Netherlands that offer a representative image of Dutch station buildings. The building, built of marl blocks, was designed  in the English neo-Gothic style. The building made of local chalk stone ('marl') has rich architectural details of braced arches, turrets and battlemented balustrades, which refer to the architecture of medieval castles. On the platform side, above the station name, there is a relief consisting of the coat of arms of Valkenburg, flanked by the coat of arms of Aachen (the eagle) and that of Maastricht (the five-pointed star). There is a similar relief on the street side, in which the coat of arms of Valkenburg has been replaced by the station clock.

January 9th 2025

 

 
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