Delays to Dutch rail traffic will remain all day but Utrecht control center back online
The computer systems outage affecting rail service throughout the Netherlands on Wednesday afternoon was largely resolved, and trains to, from, and within the Utrecht region were expected to begin running again at about 4 p.m. However, train passengers were warned that they should expect delays or cancellations throughout the day, ProRail said in an update.
"We expect train traffic to remain disrupted for the rest of the day as a result of the disruption," the railroad infrastructure firm said. The malfunction occurred at the Utrecht operations center, which is a central connecting point for rail routes in the Netherlands. As such, the situation affected trains throughout the country.
"Stranded trains must be removed and new trains and personnel must be rescheduled," ProRail said. "Dozens of trains were stranded during the disruption because they could not continue their journey. Our priority is to get these trains to a station safely, so that passengers can get off the train."
"There are still very limited trains running until the evening rush hour. Also take train cancellations into account for the rest of the evening," wrote Dutch national railway NS. Passengers should continue to monitor online travel planners for the latest information, both organizations said.
The source of the disruption was a malfunction involving the information systems and technology at the Utrecht rail traffic post, though the underlying cause remained under investigation. It took place at about 1:15 p.m., and the issue was resolved about 90 minutes later. Major disruptions typically require a gradual restart to train traffic.
The Utrecht Centraal Station is by far the busiest in the Netherlands, serving nearly 227,000 train passengers per day who either start or end there, or transfer to another train. The hub connects passengers from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Schiphol Airport with locations outside of the Randstad.
This includes Den Bosch, Eindhoven, Amersfoort, Arnhem, Zwolle, Groningen and some Belgian and German border regions.
"Research is being conducted into how this could have happened and how we can prevent this in the future. We'll share more information here when it becomes available," ProRail said.
