After visiting Het Spoorwegmuseum railway museum in Utrecht and staying at Van Der Valk Hotel Hoorn in Hoorn, Danny and I took a ride on the Stoomtram. This steamtram or tram engine is more like a light rail train than a tram or streetcar you see in urban environments.

The Stoomtram runs from Hoorn via Wognum, Twisk and Opperdoes to Medemblik in the West Friesland region of the province of North Holland. This heritage railway is 20 kms long.

The olden days

There used to be a vast network of steamtrams in The Netherlands. But the advance of buses and cars made steamtrams obsolete. The Museumstoomtram Hoorn-Medemblik gives you an opportunity to relive the olden days.

The tram takes you through small towns and polders from Hoorn to the IJsselmeer lake. Expect flatness. Surely, the ride isn’t as spectacular as a scenic journey in Switzerland, but is nice enough to be worth the excursion. The rides takes over an hour. You can either sit in 3rd class or 2nd class coaches. There’s no 1st class.

The Museumstoomtram Hoorn-Medemblik offers a combination ticket with a journey by steamship SS Friesland to Enkhuizen. From there you can take the train to Amsterdam and the rest of The Netherlands. In the Summer, you can visit the Zuiderzeemuseum. 

And now, the video: