New Delft Water Walk
The park with no train
Beneath all the trees and plants in this park, there is a reservoir which can hold up to 350,000 liters of water (about 10 large tanker trucks full). This reservoir provides water to the plants so that they can survive about 2 months of no rain. During heavy rain showers, water gets stored in the reservoir, thereby decreasing the peaks in rainwater run-off. If the reservoir is full, the excess water is diverted into the nearby canal, the Nieuwe Gracht. The park and the reservoir are located above a bicycle parking area which holds 2700 bicycles. The park has many features that are references to the trains that used to pass through this location.
How was Park Spoorloos built?
Park Spoorloos is located behind the old train station in Delft where the train platforms once stood. The story of Park Spoorloos begins in 1965 when the 1.2 km long railway viaduct was built. This cut the city in two, was also quite noisy, and was generally considered very ugly. In addition, the two-track viaduct became a bottleneck in the busy railway connection between The Hague and Rotterdam. In 2004, the decision was made to replace the viaduct with a train tunnel and to double the number of tracks. The viaduct was finally demolished in 2015 when the trains could start using the new railway tunnel.
The Spanish urban planner Joan Busquets made a plan to reunite the divided city districts; here you can find a nice overview of all the plans. The old station building plays a central role in this. The building was renovated and reopened in 2018. There is now a restaurant on the ground floor. When you enter, you see a beautiful work of art on the wall that is reminiscent of old times. In this way, the old building has been restored to its former glory. It was designed at the time by Christiaan Posthumus Meyjes Sr in the Neo-Dutch Renaissance style and was opened in 1885.
Park Spoorloos, built behind the old train station, is essentially a green roof on top of a water storage ‘reservoir’ and bicycle parking area. The reservoir is not an empty tank, but is filled with lava stone covered by a soil substrate and topped with half a meter of soil in which the plants and trees were planted. These can extract water from the reservoir. The roof of the bicycle parking area has a heavy construction in order to carry the weight of all the water and the park.
Gravel paths run between the plants. This gravel symbolises the ballast bed (“split”) on which the rails and railway ties used to lie. Metal strips show where the rails ran over the viaduct. The steel pergolas symbolise the overhead lines of the trains, and the corten steel (rusty steel) edges of the planters are reminiscent of rusty rails. Along the old station, the platform roof has been restored to its former glory.
The park has a large variety of trees, shrubs and ornamental grasses. The many plants, such as liatris, sedum, etc. attract many insects. The number of wild bees, bumblebees and butterflies, including the cabbage white, the painted lady and the red admiral, is striking. Diny Tubing, the Delft city ecologist, tells you more about the ecological value of this park. In this way, the park contributes to the biodiversity in the city.
Park Spoorloos has quite a varied vegetation.
Park Spoorloos plays an important role in making Delft climate-proof. It retains water and thus regulates the local temperature. It slowly drains rainwater to the Nieuwe Gracht and thus protects the sewer system.
