Netherlands/Belgium: NS Class 186 Traxx locos working Intercity Direct services on the HSL-Zuid line

A selection of clips showing NS Class 186 Traxx locomotives working Intercity Direct services on the HSL-Zuid line.

Clip 1 - 186 198 (front) / 186 009 (rear) leave Antwerpen-Centraal on train IC9259, the 1745 Brussels Midi to Amsterdam Centraal. Clip recorded 29th September 2018.

Clip 2 (0:44) - 186 003 (front) / 186 196 (rear) leave Antwerpen Centraal on the 1522 Amsterdam Centraal to Brussels Midi. Clip recorded 2nd October 2018.

Clip 3 (2:04) - 186 032 (front) / 186 014 (rear) leave Tilburg on train IC1152, the 1514 Eindhoven to Den Haag Centraal. ‎Clip recorded 2nd ‎October ‎2018.

Clip 4 (3:26) - 186 005 (front) / 186 001 (rear) leave Antwerpen Berchem on train IC9248, the 1522 Amsterdam Centraal to Brussels Midi. Clip recorded 4th October 2018.

Clip 5 (4:46) - 186 203 (front) / 186 202 (rear) leave Brussels Nord on train IC9271, the 2045 Brussels Midi to Amsterdam Centraal. Clip recorded 4th October 2018.

The NS Class 186 is a type of B-B electric locomotive built by Bombardier Transportation between 2006 and 2014. It is a member of the Bombardier TRAXX family of locomotives, the Bombardier TRAXX F140 MS2 variant.

The locomotives are used for pulling passenger stock, formerly for NS Hispeed and now for NS International. They are a Multi-Systems variant of the TRAXX, a quadruple voltage locomotive, able to operate on most European electrification schemes: 1.5/3.0 kV DC and 15/25 kV AC.

The locomotives are built in Kassel, Germany. The first 12 locomotives were ordered from Alpha Trains by High Speed Alliance (HSA) in 2005. These arrived in 2008 and 2009 to operate services on the HSL-Zuid between Amsterdam and Breda. These trains have a maximum speed of 160 km/h. These locomotives were intended to be a temporary measure until the V250 high-speed sets entered service. The V250 entered service in 2012, but was taken out of service in early 2013 and these have since been sold back to the manufacturer. For this reason the NS TRAXX locomotives are still in service and will remain so until at least 2020.

On 18 December 2013 NS announced that 19 locomotives had been ordered in addition to the 12 leased TRAXX locomotives in service. These were delivered between August 2014 and January 2015. This batch and are owned by NS and are in the company's yellow-blue livery.

The locomotives operate Intercity Direct services between Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Breda and The Hague, Rotterdam, Breda and Eindhoven. These use the High Speed Line (HSL-Zuid) and are operated by Nederlandse Spoorwegen.

The NS Class 186 fleet comprises 45 locomotives and 18 leased locomotives.
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Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) (English: "Dutch Railways") is a Dutch state-owned company, the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands. Founded in 1938, NS provides rail services on the Dutch main rail network (Dutch: hoofdrailnet). The Dutch rail network is the 7th busiest in the European Union, and 16th busiest in the world.

The rail infrastructure is maintained by network manager ProRail, which was split off from NS in 2003. Freight services, formerly operated by NS Cargo, merged with the DB Schenker group in 2000. NS runs 4,800 scheduled domestic trains a day, serving 1.1 million passengers. Also, NS provides international rail services from the Netherlands to other European destinations and carries out concessions on some foreign rail markets through its subsidiary Abellio.
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Intercity Direct is a Dutch high-speed train service operating on the HSL-Zuid, connecting Amsterdam Centraal to Schiphol Airport, Rotterdam Centraal and Breda. Intercity Direct replaced the Fyra brand as of December 2013; it is part of NS International.

The Intercity Direct train service uses the HSL-Zuid which went into service 7 September 2009.
An hourly domestic service branded Fyra by operator NS Hispeed was started on 7 September 2009 between Amsterdam and Rotterdam using TRAXX-locomotives and ICR-carriages. Initially the service was hourly and weekdays only. On 12 April 2010 service expanded to Saturdays and Sundays. As of 4 October 2010, frequency increased to twice hourly. Service was extended to Breda on 3 April 2011.

An international service also known as Fyra between Amsterdam and Brussels started 9 December 2012 using V250 rolling stock of AnsaldoBreda. From 17 January 2013 this service had to be pulled due to undercarriage damage caused by ice and snow. As of June 2013 international Fyra service has been permanently suspended by both Dutch and Belgian railways.

Due to the perceived bad reputation of the Fyra brand, the domestic service rebranded into Intercity Direct as of December 2013.
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