Train hits cinderblock on rails

Train traffic between Assen and Zwolle was disrupted this morning when a train ran into a cinderblock that lay on the tracks near Beilen.

No one was injured during the incident that happened around 8.15am. Railway company NS suspects that someone deliberately placed the concrete cinderblock on the rails. The company had filed a police report, a spokesman said.

Traffic was held up for a while, but about an hour later one track was reopened.

It is the second time in a year that vandals target train traffic in the Netherlands. In January passengers on a train on the Hanze-route narrowly escaped injury when a pipe that was laid on the tracks near Lelystad gored the floor of the wagon they were sitting in.