Great Western Coffee Shop

The station will close for the summer from 1 April, with trains replaced by buses for five months. When the line re-opens in September, the once-mighty Continental rail terminus will be relegated to part of the Metro system for the second-biggest city in the Netherlands.

Budget flying has claimed another victim. Hook of Holland, one of the grandest stations in Europe, is to be re-born as a stop on the Rotterdam Metro.

Hoek van Holland Haven, as the stations is officially known, opened in 1893. The Thomas Cook journal, Cook’s Excursionist, reported excitedly: “The Great Eastern Railway Company’s new route to the Continent from Harwich, via the Hook of Holland, is now open.

“New and powerful steamers have been constructed for this service; and as travellers for Holland, Germany, &c., landing at the ‘Hook,’ will be spared the passage up the Maas, a considerable saving of time will be effected.”

For most of the next century, the international rail-sea interchange flourished. Direct trains ran from its extensive platforms to Berlin and Copenhagen, while the luxury Rheingold ran beside western Europe's mightiest river via Cologne and Baden-Baden to Basel.

In 1933, Patrick Leigh Fermor began his journey across Europe to Constantinople (Istanbul) from Hook of Holland. He later described it in A Time of Gifts.

After the Second World War, Hook of Holland was a starting point for the Orient Express. Even in the 1970s and 80s, transcontinental trains lined up to receive passengers from the Harwich ferry and take them on to Copenhagen, Berlin and Warsaw.

The final Warszawa Express to the Polish capital departed exactly 100 years after the station opened.

Since 1993, services have dwindled still further, as the number of budget flights has increased. The Boat Train to Amsterdam ceased a decade ago, when Stena Line's high-speed catamaran from Harwich was withdrawn; conventional ferries still ply the route.

In 2014, the writers Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries described the westbound journey via the now-forlorn station: “There is a sort of melancholy born of leaving the Continent without having properly said one's farewells. There is no such thing as a grand exit via Hoek van Holland.”

Hook of Holland, one of the grandest stations in Europe

Today of all days seems an appropriate time to announce the closure of another link between Britain and continental Europe.

The analogy works rather well.  A link with Europe is abandoned and after many months they will put in place an alternative which will achieve many of the same things as the original. 

But without the convince and ease of the original 

But without the convince and ease of the original 

Certainly less convenient for long distance travellers; but then who still travels long distances internationally by train in Europe? 

How far those passengers were going beyond Rotterdam, I don't know.  Certainly Rotterdam Centraal is a convenient interchange (or rather "has been") , but the traffic on the train from Hoek van Holland has been dwarfed by local commuter traffic along the line into Rotterdam.

I thought that there hadn't been any boat trains for over ten years - just the local trains to Rotterdam Centraal? that being replace by a Metro line to ... Rotterdam Centraal.

The late-running project to reconnect a key ferry link from the UK with the European rail network officially reopens today – to criticism that railway heritage has been lost.

Passengers on the historic crossing from Harwich to Hook of Holland in the Netherlands could once choose from an array of express trains deep into Europe.

But they must now board a tram that runs on line B of the Rotterdam metro network, and later change to the Dutch railway network.

I do wonder if SailRail tickets are valid on the Rotterdam Metro.

just looking at the info supplied,does the road actually have a cross roads junction with the rail tracks?