From monsters to nanoseconds: How an 8-year-old saved the NS’s image
It’s Wednesday afternoon at Groningen’s main station. The rain is holding off, but the atmosphere is no less lively. A small group of travelers stops in their tracks, pointing and grinning. Over there, on track 4a, it sits: the monster train. A real looker, except this one has teeth, eyes, and a set of hefty claws curling along its side. It’s the brainchild of 8-year-old Phileine, who’s standing next to it, glowing with pride. And honestly? This is the best thing to happen to NS in a long time.
We all know the feeling. That moment when you’re stuck on yet another delayed intercity, you spill coffee on yourself, and you swear you’re going to write a strongly worded letter to NS Reizigers B.V. The NS’s reputation? Let’s just say it hasn’t exactly gotten a fresh coat of paint in recent years. And then along comes Phileine. She didn’t submit another report on punctuality; she drew a train full of spooky creatures. And today, that train made its official debut. It wasn’t some stiff PR stunt, but a genuine smile.
I was there when she stepped off. The grin on her face was wider than the nose of a Honda NSX I once saw tearing down the Autobahn. Only this was a quieter joy. Her design stood out from countless others, a conductor told me. And you know what’s the best part? While the rest of the country was complaining about delays of a few minutes, this train was perfectly on time. Down to the nanosecond it rolled into the station. Like time itself decided to play nice for an 8-year-old.
I overheard a father say to his son, “Look, there it is!” and it reminded me of that old computer term, nslookup. Back when the internet was still an adventure, you’d use that command to see where a website was really coming from. It felt like Phileine, with her drawings, had just done an nslookup on the soul of the NS. She searched for where the fun and imagination had gone, and found them again in her own monster scribbles.
What makes this so special? Let me break it down:
- Perfect timing: Right when the debate about schedules and fines was heating up again, along comes this initiative. Not a press release, but an actual monster on wheels.
- It feels like it’s ours: This train wasn’t dreamed up by a marketing agency in Amsterdam, but by a girl from Zutphen. That’s what makes it authentic.
- It breaks the monotony: Travel is often just point A to point B, head down, earbuds in. Today, people looked up. They pointed. They laughed.
And then there are the details on that train... I saw a monster holding onto a platform pole like it was a lollipop. Another had wheels with eyes that seemed to watch you the whole ride. It’s almost a shame this train isn’t a regular on international routes. Just imagine: NS International to Berlin, but with a grinning dragon on the side. Now that would be a conversation starter.
Phileine walked along the carriages with her dad. She wore a little backpack and looked like she’d just traveled the world. Her father told me she’d been working on the drawings for months. Every evening, a new monster. Some were scary, others just a little odd. And it was that exact mix that stood out. It’s that unfiltered perspective. The kind we adults often skim past too quickly.
So yes, the NS still has a long way to go with punctuality and customer service. But today, at Groningen’s main station, it wasn’t about the numbers. It was about a kid with markers and paper holding up a mirror to a national institution. And that mirror was full of monsters that were actually pretty endearing. If you ask me, we need more of that. Maybe they should run that nslookup at NS more often: searching for that spark of magic that’s still there. Today, they found it in a monster train.