‘Het Station’ dispatch building
Built in 1935, national monument
Past
The dispatch building, nicknamed ‘Het Station,’ was the transit hut for raw materials. These arrived via the adjacent railway or by truck. This began in 1878, with the railway connecting Amsterdam and Zaandam via the Hembrug bridge. When the new and wider Hembrug was opened, in 1907, the tracks were doubled. One track was dedicated solely for use as a factory railway. The Hembrug Stop was built especially for the staff of Artillerie Inrichtingen and the Norit factory to the west of the railway embankment. Freight was transported via the second track. The railway fell into disuse when road transport became cheaper. Various narrow-gauge railways ran over the site, from the dispatch building and the quay. The goods were distributed on lorries – small rail wagons pushed by hand. The Hembrug Stop was shut in 1982.
The brass for the shells and cartridges was also stored in the dispatch building. Later on, the corporate services and shipping department office was based here. The floor of the office section was raised to take advantage of direct daylight through the high-up windows. The large glass frontages are a recent addition, to create more light.
A former employee recalls: ‘Sometimes I went by train, A.I. Hembrug had its own station. The Zaandam locals stood on one side and the people from Amsterdam on the other side of the platform. They called us peasants. We all ribbed each other a bit.’
Present
Since June 2018, the building has housed the office of Hembrug Zaandam B.V. This project development agency is the current owner of many buildings, and all the land, on the Hembrug site. They plan to create a mix of living and working. New housing will be built and the existing buildings will be used for commercial activities.
More information: https://hembrugontwikkelt.nl/
Employees of the Artillerie Inrichtingen (national ammunition and weapons factory) on the platform of the former Hembrug stop.
A group of men are waiting on the platform at Hembrug stop. The train station was opened by the ‘Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij’ (Hollands Iron Railway-Company) in 1907. The timetable consistently referred to a ‘stop’ instead of a station. This is because this location only had a wooden shelter, with no ticket booths and no station building. Hardly any trains stopped there as well.
The Zaans Museum was founded in 1998 on the Zaanse Schans to guard and preserve the Zaan heritage.
The Hembrug Museum tells the story of the arms and ammunition factory that was located on the Hembrugterrein in Zaandam.
In 1697, the Russian Tsar Peter the Great stayed in this world-famous house in the center of Zaandam.
