The Westerbork transit camp, where Dutch Jews and others were held before deportation to Nazi concentration camps in the East, had its own branch line from the Meppel–Groningen railway, branching off at the former Hooghalen railway station. In the 1970s, the railway was the scene of two train hijackings by South-Moluccans: in 1975 at Wijster, and in 1977 at De Punt.