Foto: Peter Valckx

Peter Dijk, alumnus Hydrogeology: ‘It’s nice to see Eva’s enthusiasm as she walks around here’

Gemma Venhuizen6 November 2015

As an alumnus, there are a number of ways you can remain involved with the Vrije Universiteit. Amsterdam’s Metro & Tram Director, hydrogeology alumnus Peter Dijk, takes medical student Eva Panneman underground to see the construction work on the North/South Line. “That open, candid mind is inspiring to me too.”

He’s had the helmet on a hundred times, and his fluorescent yellow safety jacket fits him like a glove. For Vrije Universiteit hydrogeology alumnus Peter Dijk (48), the Amsterdam underground is familiar territory. “I try to come and look at one of the construction sites every week,” says the general director of Metro & Tram for the municipality of Amsterdam. We are standing in the metro hall at Central Station, armed with vest, helmet, boots and safety glasses, and ready to descend dozens of metres underground for a look behind the scenes at Dijk’s largest and most famous project, the North/South Line. Most of the time, he comes here in the company of contractors or construction workers, but today he’s here with a special guest, Eva Panneman, a fourth year medical student from the Vrije Universiteit. She won the meet & greet in a contest during the orientation week last summer, when she was mentoring a group of first years. “I thought it would be really interesting to see a project like this. It’s cool to stand here and then be able to say later, while riding on the metro: hey, I walked around here.”

‘Can you hear that squeaking, grinding noise above our heads? That’s a tram.’

In a couple of weeks…

“It’s still astonishing,” says Dijk as he descends the stairs ahead of us into the darkness. “The way two parallel worlds exist, not 30 metres apart: the Damrak on the surface, with countless pedestrians and cyclists, and us here in the tunnel beneath. Can you hear that squeaking, grinding noise above our heads? That’s a tram.”
Radio 538 is playing underground; a construction worker walks past, humming. Christmas lights are hanging on the walls. “It’s cheery here,” says Panneman.

‘It’s cool to stand here and then to be able to say later, while riding on the metro: hey, I walked around here.’

there’ll be 750 volts DC running through this tunnel under the Damrak

We step onto the rails. Dijk: “In a couple of weeks there’ll be a 750 volt DC current running through this and walking here will be strictly forbidden.” The total distance of the North/South Line is 9.7 kilometres. The southernmost station is at walking distance from the Vrije Universiteit – soon, thousands of students will be travelling on the new metro. It’s precisely for this reason that Dijk is only too happy to have a Vrije Universiteit student walk along with him for a couple of hours. As he leads us into the tunnel, Dijk says: “It’s nice to see Eva’s enthusiasm as she walks around here. That open, candid mind is inspiring to me too. I’ve been involved with the project for ten years already, and naturally we are looking towards the future: what do we still have to do to make sure that the metro is actually running here by October 2017?” Eva asks questions about the boring of the tunnel and the construction of the platforms – all steps that we’ve taken in order to get here.” We walk past one of the future platforms. The escalators are already in place, but not yet in use. Bags of construction cement lie next to a DIXI toilet.

The danger of professional distortion

Dijk enjoys looking at it together like this. “It’s good to zoom out, look at the big picture, and not get lost in all the details. That’s the danger with professional distortion, something I already had trouble with during my earth sciences studies. I couldn’t look at a mountain and simply think: wow, how beautiful. I immediately saw the faults and folds,” he laughs. “I have positive memories. It was a field that was both detailed and practical: there was beautiful field work in Spain, the Dura and the Dolomites… When a former classmate asked me last spring if I wanted to give a lecture on my work at the Vrije Universiteit during the Earth Sciences Career Day, I immediately said yes.”

Dijk’s major was hydrogeology and he graduated in 1993. “It’s a real shame that Vrije Universiteit is now cutting hydrology. Look!” Dijk points upwards. “See the wall above us? That’s a water damming wall. The tunnel we’re standing in runs right under the IJ. Imagine if there was a disaster and water was to come into the tunnel. We would let the dam wall down to stop the whole tunnel becoming flooded.”

Who knows how many new romances?

After graduating, Dijk studied law at the University of Amsterdam. The Vrije Universiteit remains his favourite, however, and not least because he met his wife there. ”It was in the bus on the way to the university. Who knows how many new romances will blossom on the North/South Line… We’ll have to make sure there isn’t a wifi connection in the metro, otherwise everyone will just sit and stare at their telephone screens!”