ProRail is pressing charges against a man who parked his semi-trailer truck on a level crossing in Leeuwarden last week Friday, after which an Arriva train collided with it, NOS reports.
Six people sustained minor injuries in the accident, including the train driver and the truck driver. The accident also disrupted train traffic and resulted in the entire level crossing installation needing to be replaced.
Startling security camera footage surfaced on Wednesday showing the moment a passenger train collided with a semi-trailer truck. The crash happened in Leeuwarden, Friesland late last week, resulting in several minor injuries.
A large cloud can be seen emanating from the semi-trailer at the moment of impact. The truck was hauling milk powder near a FrieslandCampina dairy facility. The video was first broadcast by Omroep Fryslan.
Heavily-armed police in the Netherlands stormed onto a stopped passenger train to capture two men sitting in the train car. It was one of three separate incidents in two hours taking place at or near the Zwolle train station, which led to the arrests of five people in total.
A suspicious package was found at the provincial house on Visarenddreef in Lelystad on Monday morning. The police closed down the area around the building, including part of the nearby train station. Multiple banners with slogans about nature reserve Oostvaardersplassen were also found hanging on the provincial house, a spokesperson for the Midden Nederland police said to NU.nl.
The police are allowing pedestrians into the train station, but motorists are being stopped, according to Omroep Flevoland.
An Arriva train crashed into a car at an unguarded rail crossing near Scheemda on Monday morning. The motorist was killed. The train driver remained unharmed. There were no passengers on the train, NOS reports.
The cause of the accident is not yet clear. There is currently no train traffic on the route between Groningen and Veendam.
This is not the first accident at this crossing. In 2015 a person in a car died after a collision with a train at the same crossing. Another collision happened in January of this year, but no one was killed.
On Friday Arriva is running an adjusted timetable with fewer trains on its routes in Groningen and Friesland. The public transit company is struggling with equipment problems caused by the persistent heat, Arriva said on its website.
"In order to be able to offer the most reliable timetable possible, Arriva is therefore working on a modified timetable on Friday", the company said. Arriva train traffic was also affected by these equipment problems on Thursday, according to RTV Noord.
Due to a national strike in regional public transit, virtually no city- or regional buses will run from today. Some regional trains could also fall out. NS trains, and public transit in Amsterdam and The Hague are unaffected. Rotterdam is partly affected.
Regional public transit workers across the Netherlands will strike from Wednesday, unions CNV and FNV confirmed. Mediators' attempt to make a new collective bargaining agreement for this sector failed, ANP reports.
CNV called on its members to strike for 72 hours starting on Wednesday morning. "Unfortunately, we would've like to see this end differently", CNV negotiator Jean-Marie Severijns said.
A nationwide strike in regional public transit previously announced to start on Monday, has been postponed until Wednesday, June 27th. This is to give mediators more time to come to a solution in the deadlocked collective bargaining agreement talks between unions and employers, union CNV said, AD reports.
In February a man was arrested on suspicion of setting a number of Arriva buses on fire last year. The suspect is a former bus driver who was fired from Arriva at the end of 2016, Brabants Dagblad reports based on various sources.
According to the newspaper, the 29-year-old man worked as a driver on Arriva's regional lines. He was fired late in 2016 because a broken relationship with another employee led to problems on the work floor.
A passenger saw an Arriva bus driver smoking a joint shortly before driving his bus from Tilburg station on Sunday evening. Passenger Rory Jonkergouw reported this to Arriva. The company takes the incident seriously and is investigating what happened, NOS reports.
Jonkergouw told Omroep Brabant that the bus driver quickly turned away when he saw him coming. "But there is no doubt about it." According to him, the bus driver took a lot of risks. "He drove over two lanes at once and very fast around turns. Then he knocked down several pylons that were on the road for work."
Regional buses and -trains will not be operating across the Netherlands on Monday and Tuesday. The court gave workers permission to strike, AD reports.
The regional bus and train drivers are striking for a lower workload, more training and breaks to use the bathroom. Unions FVN and CNV announced the strike earlier this week.
The first train from the city of Groningen to Eemshaven arrived at the new station at 9:47 a.m. on Wednesday. With that the northernmost station in the Netherlands is officially operational. The train ride from Groningen to Eemshaven is 51 minutes long, with stops at nine stations, NOS reports.
The Arriva train targets people who work in Eemshaven and tourists. From now on a train will run to Eemshaven five times a day. The train connects to the boat to the German Wadden island of Borkum.
Transit company Arriva closed the toilets on its trains to prevent poop and urine freezing in the collection system in the extremely cold weather the Netherlands is currently experiencing. Stickers on the toilets inform passengers that they cannot be used, NOS reports.
Closing the toilets is a precaution, an Arriva spokesperson said to the broadcaster. "It is really extremely cold for our country. So we are preventing damage and the trains having to be taken out of service." Arriva expects this measure will be in effect until Saturday.
Public transportation in the Netherlands was seriously disrupted Thursday morning after regional transit workers walked off the job at 4 a.m. in a one-day strike. The labour action is meant to call attention to what the workers have called unreasonable work pressure, and a pay raise that is capped 40 percent lower than what the bus drivers and train conductors wanted.
Dutch labor union FNV has announced a massive regional transit strike scheduled to take place on Thursday that will shut down many public transportation routes including tram lines in Utrecht. The planned action is because workers could not get guarantees to reduce job stress, and a proposed salary increase is smaller than demanded.
Rail manager ProRail will start experimenting with self-driving trains on several routes next year. The first test involves freight trains on the Betuwe-line. And the first experiment with passenger trains will happen in the province of Groningen, NOS reports.
The freight trains tests will be done in cooperation with Alstom, a company that is developing a system for automatic train operation. The experiment in Groningen will be done in collaboration with transit company Arriva and the province of Groningen.
On Monday trade unions CNV Vakmensen and FNV announced labor actions and a possible nationwide, 24 hour long public transit strike on January 4th. These actions are the result of talks on a new collective bargaining agreement for public transit workers collapsing last month, Financieele Dagblad reports.
The current collective bargaining agreement expires on January 1st. It covers over 12 thousand public transit employees.
The provinces of Friesland and Groningen, with rail manager ProRail, plan to start testing a train running on hydrogen next year. The provinces hope that hydrogen will prove to be a cheap and sustainable alternative to the diesel trains currently running between Leeuwarden and Groningen, the Volkskrant reports.
A serious shortage of bus drivers is looming just over the horizon, NOS reports after speaking to the Dutch public transit companies. Some companies even doubt whether they will be able to keep all their bus lines running in the near future.
The Dutch Authority on Consumers and Market (ACM) fined rail company NS 41 million euros for fraud in the procurement of a contract for regional public transit in Limburg, the authority announced on Thursday. According to ACM, NS misused its "economic dominant position" to distort competition by intentionally entering a loss-making bid, NU.nl reports.
A woman gave birth on an Arriva Bus in Breda on Sunday evening. The baby boy was born on line 115 on Markendaalseweg, with the help of bus driver and passengers, Omroep Brabant reports.
Bus driver Frans Videler saw in his mirror that something was up with the woman. He heard a shout and saw her water break. He pulled the bus over, let traffic control know via the emergency button and called the emergency services. He was still on the line when the baby was born
At least two people were killed when an Arriva train collided with a car at a crossing on Oude Trekweg in Harlingen, Friesland on Monday. More fatalities are not ruled out, the police said. According to the Leeuwarder Courant, the victims are an adult and a child.
Winsum mayor Rinus Michels openly apologized to a farmer whose land will have to be used for the construction of an emergency road. That road is needed to avoid an unguarded railway crossing, where a train derailed on Friday injuring 18 people, NU.nl reports.
