[Seriously?] Station gets new name

The opening of the revamped train station in Ede was not just cause for celebration for Ede municipality; Wageningen municipality was uncorking the champagne too.

Councillor Jan Goris doesn’t want to brag but he has been going round with a smile on his face for days. ‘Although I take this victory very seriously,’ he says while hanging up a sign in his office that says in those unmistakeable NS letters: ‘Wageningen-Ede’. ‘Of course it’s ridiculous that Ede got mentioned first for all those years. Every time I was on that train and the driver called out “Ede-Wageningen station”, I would shudder in disgust.

Ede will eventually realize they stand to benefit too

Ede calls itself a city, but Wageningen is one. With our WUR campus we are actually a global city, but we have been denied our own station for all those years. It would naturally have been even better if we could have scrapped the “Ede” bit completely. I asked my lawyers to investigate this, but it wasn’t feasible.’ Goris then instructed them to look at switching the two city names. They worked for years on this top-secret assignment, finally getting the result they wanted: the court ordered NS to switch the names. The icy relations between the two municipalities caused by this court case won’t last, thinks the councillor. ‘They’ll come round. Ede will eventually realize they stand to benefit too. Now they can take advantage for free of our name recognition and the international allure of WUR. Unbelievable they didn’t come up with the idea themselves, really.’

WUR does not wish to comment on the name change. The spokesperson tells us, ‘We take a neutral position regarding NS station names. Although we agree this is much more logical for our international students and staff.’ Incidentally, some Wageningen residents — including WUR students and staff — are far from happy with the name change. A petition is circulating to take ‘Wageningen’ off the signs completely and rename the station ‘Ede South’.

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