With wind gusts expected to reach 130 km/h on Thursday, the Dutch national railway NS preemptively cancelled trains nationwide. The trains will run on a substantially reduced schedule so crews have enough time to deal with incidents like downed wires and fallen trees.
NS told passengers it made the decision in unison with ProRail, which runs handles maintenance on the railroads. The NS took to its mobile app and website to announce the decision.
The extra trains NS deploys during rush hour to help ease the pressure on overcrowded trains, are often late or do not show up at all, according to research done by newspaper AD and treinreiziger.nl based on ProRail figures. Travelers organization Rover calls this situation unacceptable.
Along with a few small train stations in Zeeland, the NS station at Schiphol is on the bottom of the list of reliable train stations in the Netherlands, according to a ranking compiled by RTL Nieuws and the website Vertraagd.com. One in eight trains to and from Schiphol station are delayed, and 1 in 25 never even reach their destination.
There will be no trains traveling between Brabant and Zuid-Holland from after morning rush hour on Tuesday due to emergency repairs to the rails on the Moerdijkbrug. Some 75 thousand people use that railway route every day
Members of union VVMC, representing workers at train transporters Arriva and Syntus, are striking for several hours in Groningen on Tuesday morning. So far about 30 trains were cancelled due to the strike. Passengers are advised to keep an eye on Arriva's website and Twitter page for actual travel information before leaving for the station.
Railway strikes in Belgium mean that no intercity- or stop trains are traveling between Amsterdam Brussels on Tuesday.
Only a very limited amount of train traffic will be possible from and to Utrecht Central Station on Monday morning. The construction works on the tracks around the station over the weekend took longer than expected and will continue into Monday morning, both NS and ProRail announced.
No trains are traveling between Rotterdam Central Station and Utrecht on Friday morning due to copper theft on the track. It is unclear how long this disturbance will last, according to NS.
Most trains between the Netherlands and Belgium were cancelled by national Dutch railway NS on Tuesday morning after train stations in and around Brussels were closed by authorities, the NS stated. The decisions were made after three separate suicide bombings were carried out at the Zaventem airport and the Maalbeek metro station in Brussels.
Some 5 thousand people submitted complaints and demands for refunds with claim company ConsumentenClaim about overcrowded NS trains. Infrastructure State Secretary Sharon Dijksma demanded that NS comes up with a solution to solve this problem before Christmas.
Problems with railroad infrastructure caused a sharp spike in the number of train cancellations last year. Issues ranging from signal errors to switch point failures caused 32,899 scrapped train journeys in 2013, an increase of more than 46 percent, website Treinreiziger.nl reported based on figures from Dutch railway NS.
Train passengers will have fewer problems with delayed and cancelled trains and can expect cleaner surroundings next year, NS promised to State Secretary Sharon Dijksma of Infrastructure and Environment.
Rail traffic to and from Utrecht Centraal station i likely to be delayed or cancelled through 4pm Monday while repair work continues on faulty overhead connection cables.
The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KMNI) has issued a code yellow weather warning for slickness on roads and sidewalks caused by the snowfall, snow residue or freezing of wet sections.
