Hook of Holland
Paddy’s arrival at the Hook:
“It was still a couple of hours till dawn when we dropped anchor in the Hook of Holland. Snow covered everything and the flakes blew in a slant across the cones of the lamps and confused the glowing discs that spaced out the untrodden quay. I hadn’t known that Rotterdam was a few miles inland. I was still the only passenger in the train and this solitary entry, under cover of night and hushed by snow, completed the illusion that I was slipping into Rotterdam, and into Europe, through a secret door.”
Rheingold
In 1928 Hook of Holland was the starting point of a prestigious new train of Mitropa and the Deutsche Reichsbahn, called Rheingold. It connected the North Sea to the Alps, running along the Rhine.
The British company LNER teamed up with Mitropa and the German railways on the Hook-Harwich connection.
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