Military transports to take priority, delaying Dutch trains for hours from late 2026

The Dutch cabinet has decided that urgent military trains will be given priority over passenger and freight services from late 2026, a shift that could halt regular rail traffic for hours at a time, as the government also warns that the country’s rail network remains ill-prepared for large-scale military transport, NOS reported.

Caretaker Infrastructure State Secretary Thierry Aartsen said the current system—under which NS passenger trains come first, followed by regional carriers such as Arriva and then freight, with military transport last—“no longer fits the world we live in.”

Speaking about the change, he acknowledged the direct impact on travelers. “It is an extreme measure, but it may happen that travelers hear: ‘NS trains will not run for the next two hours because there is a military transport,’” Aartsen said.

At present, the Netherlands handles several dozen military rail transports each year, but Aartsen said that number is expected to rise sharply as Defense prepares for large-scale deployments.

In recent years, the armed forces have purchased 70 low-loader wagons and 75 container wagons. Combined with 248 existing flat wagons, the rail fleet can now move complete brigades—including Leopard tanks, armored vehicles, trucks and other equipment—by train toward Eastern Europe.

Despite that capacity, military movements are slow. “A tank that has to go from Rotterdam to Ukraine already spends time waiting at multiple locations within the Netherlands because it has no priority, or due to endless paperwork,” Aartsen said. “As a result, trains often stand still for long periods at the border. Altogether, it quickly takes more than a month to get a military transport from the Netherlands to Ukraine.”

That delay is a serious problem for NATO, according to Radmila Šekerinska, a senior NATO official and close aide to Secretary-General Mark Rutte. “We can have the best NATO troops in the world, but if we cannot get them to our eastern border on time, we are nowhere,” she told NOS in a recent interview.

The Netherlands plays a key logistical role because of its major seaports, from Vlissingen to the Eemshaven, where amphibious transport ships can load and unload heavy equipment. Tanks can drive directly from ships onto trains, which then use strong rail links through Germany toward Eastern Europe. At the same time, the Dutch rail network is one of the busiest in the world, making it difficult for infrastructure manager ProRail to fit ad hoc military trains into schedules planned far in advance.

Until now, that has been managed by using limited reserve capacity and running many military trains at night to avoid conflicts with passenger services. Aartsen said that approach will no longer be sufficient. “With all the Defense investments on the eastern flank of Europe, we also need to properly organize this transport,” he said.

Under the new rules, only transports labeled “urgent” will receive priority. Urgency can be triggered by security risks or hard deadlines, and the ministers of Defense and Infrastructure and Water Management will jointly decide when priority applies. Aartsen stressed that not every train carrying military equipment will automatically go first.

ProRail CEO John Voppen called the policy shift necessary but warned about legal risks. “Military transports are often organized ad hoc, which means there is no longer space,” he said. “But if I, on behalf of ProRail, wrongly give priority to a military transport, the Authority for Consumers and Markets will immediately reprimand me.”

The cabinet is also pushing for a European “military Schengen,” aimed at removing bureaucratic and physical barriers to cross-border military rail traffic. The Netherlands is leading efforts to clear obstacles along the North Sea–Baltic Corridor, a more than 9,000-kilometer rail route from seaports through Germany to the Baltic states.

Aartsen has urged his European counterparts by letter to eliminate permissions, paperwork and infrastructure bottlenecks that prevent uninterrupted movement.

Still, priority alone will reportedly not solve the problem. A report presented in mid-October by the Van der Maat commission concluded that the Dutch rail system is far from “war-ready.” It identified 65 bottlenecks, including platforms that are too short and trackside markers that obstruct oversized loads. If a tank is wider than 3.15 meters, adjacent tracks often must also be shut down, meaning a single military train can disrupt rail traffic for hours.

Making the network fully suitable for military use would reportedly require an estimated 600 million euros, according to the report. That funding has not yet been allocated and will be left to the next cabinet.

Aartsen acknowledged the limits of the current decision but framed it as part of a broader obligation. “We have to say: ‘Sorry, if necessary, the military comes first,’” he said. “Ensuring sufficient capacity for military transport is also part of our responsibilities as a NATO member.”