Hoorn to Medemblik by Steam Tram

West Friesland is the flat top of North Holland, reclaimed farmland ruled into fields by ditches, and in the 1880s its towns were cut off from the railway that had just reached Hoorn and Enkhuizen. A group of Medemblik notables raised the money for a line of their own. It took three years, and on 3 November 1887 twenty kilometres of track opened from Hoorn to Medemblik, laid on a deliberately winding course so that as little land as possible had to be bought, and calling at every village it could reach. The Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij worked it. Buses took the passengers in the 1920s, and in 1935 the passenger trains stopped. Goods kept the track alive.

On 23 May 1968 a museum train ran out of Hoorn, and the Museumstoomtram Hoorn-Medemblik has worked the line ever since — about 250 volunteers and a small paid staff, presenting it as a Dutch steam tramway would have looked in 1926. That is the honest pitch. There is no scenery here in the sense Switzerland has scenery; there is a complete country railway, with eight of its ten station buildings still standing, a collection of steam tram engines that worked lines all over the Netherlands, and carriages to match.

One engine belongs here more than any other. NS 7742, the locomotive everyone calls Bello, was delivered new in 1915 to work this very line, wandered the country for forty years, ended up as a monument in the middle of Bergen, and was sold to the museum in 1978 for a single guilder. At Medemblik the tram meets a 1956 ferry that crosses the IJsselmeer to Enkhuizen, and an ordinary NS train closes the triangle back to Hoorn.

The trams leave from Tramstation Hoorn, on the north side of the NS station. It is not an original building. When the line was new, the Medemblik trains used the main station and this side of the tracks was the goods yard; the museum built its own station here from 1987 and rebuilt it in 2016 on the model of the 1900 tram station at Coevorden, with a wooden ticket hall, working gas lamps and enamel advertising boards on the walls. The museum's exhibition and its station buffet are inside. The workshop next door is the brick shed put up in 1929 for the railcars that were meant to save the line from the buses, and failed to.

Which locomotive works your train varies from day to day, and the operator publishes the choice on its Vandaag op reis page. Eight of the steam engines are in working order. Three are the square, boxed-in steam tram engines that look more like a garden shed than a locomotive. The others are conventional tank engines from Dutch tramways, factories and the national railway. Every one is fired by hand: a return trip of forty kilometres burns about 400 kilos of coal and 3,000 litres of water, and the fireman shovels all of it.

Across the polder

Out of Hoorn the line heads north and the town gives way almost at once to West Friesland: dead flat, intensely farmed, crossed by ditches and cycle paths, with village church towers marking the horizon. The railway's own story is in the track. It wanders, because the company that built it bought as little land as it could and tried to serve every village on the way, and the curves that saved money in the 1880s are what make the ride slow and pleasant now.

The trams stop at Wognum-Nibbixwoud for long enough to get out. It was a junction until 1930, for a steam tramway to Schagen, and the museum has returned the station to the way it looked in 1926: the waiting room and the stationmaster's office open, the goods shed, a hand-worked crane on the goods platform, and a separate brick privy. Food and drink are on sale here and at Hoorn.

Then come brief calls at Twisk and Opperdoes, both original 1887 buildings designed for the company by A.J. Krieger, both with goods sidings still in place. The conductor clips tickets as the train goes, and the museum makes a point of saying that he or she knows a great deal about the steam trams, so ask.

Into Medemblik

The approach crosses a lifting bridge over the lock, opened in 1928, and ends at the largest building on the line: Medemblik station, with its two waiting rooms and the stationmaster's flat upstairs, restored in 2007 exactly 120 years after it opened. The harbour is on the doorstep and the Friesland ties up at the pier opposite. On most days the tram arrives at noon and the boat sails at 13:20, which is enough time for lunch and not much else.

The steam tram does not run every day. The operator colours each day of the year in its online planner, and in 2026 the season ran from Saturday 28 March to Sunday 1 November: Tuesday to Sunday through most of the spring and summer, with few Mondays, then weekends and the autumn school holiday in October. Times below are from the operator's 2026 timetable, read in November 2026.

A standard day — one tram each way

On a standard ("yellow") day there is one return working, timed to connect with the boat at Medemblik. The tram stops briefly at Twisk and Opperdoes, and long enough at Wognum-Nibbixwoud to get out and look round.

A busy day — a second tram

On the extended ("orange" and "red") days of the summer holidays a second tram follows an hour behind the first, so a family can take the later one out and still get back.

The boat and the triangle

The Friesland leaves Enkhuizen at 10:40 and reaches Medemblik at 11:55, in time for the 13:20 tram to Hoorn. Going the other way, it leaves Medemblik at 13:20, calls at the Zuiderzee Museum at 14:35 and reaches Enkhuizen at 14:50. NS trains link Enkhuizen and Hoorn every half hour in about twenty minutes, so the circuit closes from either end. The round trip cannot be started at Medemblik. The boat does not sail in winter; the operator expects it back in spring 2027.

Outside the season

Special trains run to their own timetables and must be booked: the Pieten Expres from 15 November to 5 December 2026 and the Kerst Expres from 19 to 30 December 2026, with the Dickens Expres on 11 December. The 2026 calendar also carried a Tulip Tram in April, the Bello Festival on 3–5 July and evening trains in July and August.

Running days and live times are published by the operator: Museumstoomtram · Reisplanner (opens in a new tab).

Tickets are sold online, at the booking offices in Hoorn, Wognum and Medemblik, and aboard the Friesland for anyone starting in Enkhuizen; join the tram at Twisk or Opperdoes and the conductor sells you one. Booking is not required except for groups of 15 or more and for the Sinterklaas and Christmas trams, but the operator advises it, because only a booked ticket guarantees a seat. Special trams, packages and e-tickets carry a surcharge.

Children under four travel free, and so do holders of the Dutch Museumkaart. Any tram or boat ticket also opens the museum site at Hoorn, otherwise €7.00. A bicycle or a dog that will not sit on a lap needs a €5.00 supplement. The NS train between Enkhuizen and Hoorn is not included. Fares read from the operator in November 2026.

No rail pass covers the steam tram or the boat. The Museumstoomtram is an independent museum running its own railway and its own ship, and it does not appear in Interrail's list of Dutch operators — which, checked in November 2026 (last updated 21 October), names NS and its international partners, Eurostar, European Sleeper, Qbuzz, Arriva, Keolis, VIAS, Eurobahn and NMBS, and no one else. A pass holder pays the same €29.50 as everyone else.

What a pass does cover is the rest of the triangle. NS Sprinters and Intercitys are included with no reservation, and NS is what gets you to Hoorn and back from Enkhuizen. There is no Netherlands-only Interrail pass: the country comes under the Benelux One Country Pass, shared with Belgium and Luxembourg, and the Global Pass. A One Country Pass cannot be used in the country you live in, so a Dutch reader gets nothing from it at home.

Whether it is worth it

For this journey alone, no. The only rail travel a pass would pay for is the NS ride to Hoorn and the twenty-minute hop back from Enkhuizen, which is not worth a pass day. It earns its keep only if the steam tram is one day in a longer trip around the Low Countries — and even then the tram and the boat are bought separately.

The tram, the boat and the NS train make a triangle of three old Zuiderzee harbour towns — Hoorn, Medemblik and Enkhuizen. The timetable leaves an hour and twenty minutes at Medemblik and puts a museum stop on the boat, so the day has room for more than the ride.

Most visitors make the trip as a day out, but the first tram leaves Hoorn at 10:40 and the full triangle takes most of the day, so a night at either end makes it unhurried. Hoorn has the wider choice; Medemblik is the small, quiet end of the line.

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