The story
On August 9, 1878, the Dutch law on Local Railways and Tramways was enacted. It facilitated the creation of cheaper railway networks throughout the Netherlands by addressing a number of requirements, such as staffed signal boxes. According to the new legislation, train speed could not exceed 30 km/h. This enabled the laying of lighter and cheaper rail.
The construction of local railways began due to the request local textile producers who required a railway between Winterswijk, Groenlo, Eibergen, Neede, Haaksbergen, and Hengelo / Enschede. A committee was created that sought to ensure the development of a railway to Enschede. This railway had to create a connection to the Ruhr. The line joined to two already-existing lines servicing Germany in Winterswijk.
On June 18, 1881, Jan Willink created the GOLS network, which would service two main lines and two branches:
Winterswijk - Hengelo
Boekelo - Enschede
Winterswijk - Zevenaar
Doetinchem - Ruurlo
The lines Winterswijk-Hengelo and Ruurlo-Neede were opened on October 15, 1884. The line between Winterswijk and Zevenaar opened on July 15 of 1885 but quickly lost popularity among the textile producers. On December 7, 1885, a connection between Boekelo and Enschede was created bringing the total length of the GOLS network to 131 kilometers.
From Wikipedia’s article on Geldersch-Overijsselsche Spoorweg Maatschappij, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3