All escalators in the Utrecht Central station hall can be used again.
For a long time, escalators at Utrecht Central Station stood still. Sometimes it was a few, sometimes it was a lot. Some escalators have taken more than a year to repair. As of today, Wednesday 15 March, all escalators are working again.
different causes
With its 16 platform tracks, Utrecht Central is the largest station in the Netherlands. The platforms are located under the higher station hall. That is why there are a lot of escalators at Utrecht Central. In the past period, things have not been going well: many of the escalators have regularly come to a standstill. There are several reasons why the escalators have been taken out of service. For example, various parts of escalators have become defective. Other escalators in the station concourse had been rejected for safety reasons: there was too much wear and tear on the steps on those escalators.
Chiel Overgoor, responsible for escalators and lifts at ProRail, explains: “The escalators at Utrecht Central Station are about 15 years old. Theoretically, these should last a lot longer. During the major renovation of Utrecht Central Station between 2010 and 2015, construction dust got into the escalators, causing the parts to wear out faster.”
back in operation
We are working hard to get the escalators working again. All escalators in the Utrecht Central station hall can be used again. Unfortunately, the repairs took much longer than ProRail had envisioned.
Chiel: “It is mainly very annoying for the traveler who wants to use the escalators. There are plans to replace escalators. In this case, it was necessary to repair the escalators much sooner than expected. And it was also a lot more complicated. It really was a succession of various problems, also with external parties. That made it take much longer than intended. We are very disappointed about that.”
modernized escalators
A lot of research had to be done for the recovery. The recovery was also not immediately successful and a new plan had to be made: that was quite time-consuming. In addition, there is still a shortage of parts. The delivery time of the necessary parts is therefore very long. There are also staff shortages at repair companies. This also leads to a longer repair time.
Chiel: “We modernized the escalators. That should prevent problems in the future. The escalators have been given a new drive that makes them as good as new.”
blow to the arm
Nevertheless, the specialist is cautious: “The escalators that have not yet been addressed may still need repairs. Those escalators may also be damaged by the building dust. We try to prevent that, of course, or to repair it preventively.”
Solutions are being looked at to prevent prolonged downtime, for example by having extra parts in stock and by carrying out repairs with parts from old escalators that have been replaced. Our maintenance party will also work more efficiently and preventively in special teams on escalators at stations.
