Most trains in Northern Netherlands cancelled; Delays at Schiphol & on roads

A technical malfunction forced the cancellation of most trains operating in the northern provinces of the Netherlands on Tuesday. The second consecutive windy and rainy workday also caused some problems at Schiphol Airport, and the busiest morning rush hour of the year was reported, a situation compounded by rail strikes. More trouble was expected for the evening commute.

The major malfunction at a train traffic control station in Zwolle made monitoring train traffic in the region impossible. By around 10:00 a.m., no trains were running in the region. The control station in Zwolle covers a large part of the north and east of the country, so the malfunction is heavily affecting train traffic in those areas. But it could also have consequences for train traffic in the rest of the Netherlands, a ProRail spokesperson told NU.nl.

NS reported unexpected train traffic problems on its website. Most of those in the north and east were caused by the Zwolle malfunction, though a strike also disrupted train traffic in the east.

The malfunction left several trains stuck on the track in the Zwolle region. The people in the trains couldn’t be evacuated immediately, ProRail said around 10:30 a.m. The carrier did not say how many trains and people were involved. Readers reported to NU.nl that they’d been stuck in a train near Zwolle for two hours.

ProRail couldn’t say how long the problems would last and advised travelers to check their travel planners for up-to-date information before leaving for the train station. NS said the problems would persist until at least noon.

The stiff wind on Tuesday morning prompted air traffic controllers to limit the rate of arriving flights at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, according to Eurocontrol. The situation was gradually improving, with some delays.

By 10:30 a.m., airlines had already cancelled 26 departing flights and 33 arriving flights, Schiphol said. Another 58 departures and 67 arrivals were also delayed. The situation was still far better than Monday, when storm-force winds forced the cancellation of 122 flights in total, with 716 flights delayed over the course of the day.

Tuesday also delivered the busiest morning rush hour of the year, Dutch travel association ANWB said. There were over 1,100 kilometers of traffic jams reported by the association and infrastructure agency Rijkswaterstaat before 8:45 a.m., with heavier rainfall in the central and southern provinces leading to many accidents.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are normally the busiest days on the roads in the Netherlands, but several other factors may have led to higher volumes of traffic. Public transport workers went on strike, affecting the availability of buses and trains, with serious impact in the provinces of Friesland, Groningen, Drenthe, Overijssel, Gelderland, and Limburg. Additionally, crews were busy carrying out work on the A7 in Groningen, ANP reported.

The ANWB also said that the evening rush hour on Tuesday was likely to be problematic, with the strikes leading to more vehicles on the roads. The situation will likely worsen should workers need more time to repair the train malfunctions in the north, with traffic already expected to be bad in the Ranstad, around Utrecht, and along the A2 and A27 in the south.