Free rail travel for book lovers in Netherlands

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

 On the National Book Day, Netherlands will make trains free for those who will show a book instead of a ticket and Dutch book lovers during the annual book week celebration can commute across the country’s entire network this weekend.

Boekenweek is a celebration of literature marked with literary festivals and book signings across the country and  has been celebrated since 1932 in Netherlands.

A special novel- the book week gift or Boekenweekgeschenk  is written by a well-known Dutch author, this is given out for free to people buying books during the festivities or sign up a library.

This year the novel Jas Van Belofte by author Jan Siebelink can be shown insated of a rail ticket on every train in the country on the Sunday of book week.

The annual festival has been sponsored by the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS), the Dutch state railway company. It also organises book readings signings by top authors on its trains.

Author Jan Siebelink said after boarding a train for the city of Utrecht to meet passengers and read his book that he felt good to see the happy faces.

So far, NS is not the only railway company that accepts objects in lieu of payment, while Virgin Trains offered a 1/3 discount to passengers between the age of 18-30 who presented an avocado to ticket inspector which was a dry joke about the delayed Millennial Railcard.

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