Documentation and reference material
More than one and a half centuries of railway history has produced a wealth of information, in the form of both documentation and images. NS has given the vast majority of this material to several professional institutions. As a result, the information is available to everyone.
The Railway Museum
The Railway Museum in Utrecht is home to approximately 15,000 books and magazines about railways and tramways in the Netherlands and abroad. The museum has an extensive collection of documents, technical drawings, photographs and railway items.
NVBS
The Vereniging van Belangstellenden in het Spoor- en tramwegwezen (NVBS) collects information about trams and trains in various forms, such as photographs, films, postcards, newspaper clippings and technical drawings.
The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision
The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision takes care of film and video resources about the railways. Their collection includes approximately 140 commissioned films and video productions made by the N.V. Nederlandse Spoorwegen from 1947 to 1992. These include documentaries, educational films, advertisements, corporate films and reports about the railway.
The Utrecht Archive
The Utrecht Archive contains approximately 1600 meters of archives and collections from almost all the Dutch railway companies. This material dates from the period 1832 to 1994 (and later in some cases).
The book "Spoorwegen in Nederland, van 1834 tot nu"
On 20 September 2004 the first copy of the standard work about the history of the railway in the Netherlands was presented to the Chief Executive of NS. The book is entitled: "Spoorwegen in Nederland, van 1834 tot nu", published by Boom in Amsterdam (ISBN 90-5352-980-2).