Train entirely spray-painted in silver has NS seeing red

Eight railcars belonging to national rail operator NS were thoroughly covered in silver spray paint as they sat idle at the station in Wormerveer, Noord-Holland. Vandals painted all windows and doorways along the platform side of a pair of four-car trains, which were coupled in the middle.

"We find this incredibly antisocial," a spokesperson for the NS told RTL Nieuws. The affected train was removed from service and replaced with another vehicle. The NS said it has to remove the paint and clean the train.

Wormerveer resident Michel Schermer spotted the Silver Streak, posting photos of it to a Facebook group for the city's inhabitants. He said he was increasingly concerned by vandalism at the train station there, including broken windows in the waiting areas, and graffiti on the platforms and at the tunnels.

He photographed a pile of disused aerosol paint cans near where he said a fence was clipped. With no security in sight he said the train was handed over to the vandals on a silver platter, allowing them to access the unattended train through the makeshift gate without being spotted.

"Now that the station in Wormerveer is increasingly used as a train yard, supervision would be useful to prevent this kind of vandalism in the future," he said. "It might be time for the Zaanstad municipality or ProRail to set up surveillance at and around the stations. Repairing this every time costs a lot of money and ultimately we pay for it ourselves."

The NS said it hopes the police can provide a silver lining to the incident by catching the perpetrators. The rail company hopes to recover damages from the offenders, but did not provide a damage estimate.