Zanderij Maarn / Maarnse Zandgat

When the Utrecht - Arnhem railway line was built, the Utrechtse Heuvelrug between Driebergen and Maarn was in the way. That is why it was decided to dig a passage here. From 1840 and in the first half of the last century, the extracted sand was used to provide the railway lines to be built in the west and north of the country with a solid foundation. The sand excavated in the Zanderij Maarn was removed by trains. The marshalling yard intended for this purpose grew into the central freight yard for the central Netherlands. In the last years of the First World War it was even expanded considerably.

From 1 February 1953, production was increased in order to transport sand to the flooded areas affected by the flood disaster. The capacity is expanded from 225 to 300 tons per hour by placing a dragline next to the existing gripper. Due to the available track capacity, it is possible to depart a maximum of 10 trains per day. A total of 157 trains ran from Maarn to the affected areas between 1 February and 14 March 1953. These trains transport 95,870 tonnes of sand.

From 1953 to 1970 it housed an engineer camp of the 107th Care Battalion. From that year on, the Zanderij was further excavated, creating a lake that attracted a lot of recreation in the beginning. Nowadays there is a swimming ban here. When the A12 motorway, built in the middle of the last century, needed major maintenance, there was also an asphalt factory in the seventies. In 1976, the army practiced storming 'hijacked' trains in the hermetically sealed Zanderij for this occasion. After the NS sold the Zanderij, it was closed to everyone until 2013. Today it is a nature reserve with a special flora.

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