Over 1,600 complaints about noise from the new high speed train service between Amsterdam and Rotterdam have been received since trials began earlier this month, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday.

‘That is a considerable amount in a short space of time,’ a spokesman for track company ProRail told the paper. ‘It is a signal that something is not right.’
‘It sounds like a load of gravel being dumped on the corner, for two minutes at a time,’ Edith Bal, who lives 1.4 km from the track, told the paper.
Dutch Rail (NS) plans to introduce an hourly service next month. From December, the Thalys high-speed service to Paris will also use the track. By 2012, six trains an hour are supposed to use the track, travelling at speeds of up to 300 kph.
A spokesman for the NS told the paper that the NS simply rented capacity on the railway. ‘It is up to the government to take action, if that proves to be necessary,’ he said.
Liberal MP Charlie Aptroot called on transport minister Camiel Eurlings to take immediate action. ‘In the current planning, locals have to wait until 2011 for an evaluation of the noise. This is completely unacceptable. The minister must take responsibility and solve the problem,’ he told the Volkskrant.