train traffic

The police will hinder train travelers at Utrecht Central Station during rush hour on Monday morning as part of their labor actions for a better collective bargaining agreement. Police officers will form a line at the station and passengers will only be able to enter through gaps in the line, ANP reports.

This action will happen between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Travelers should take delays into account, according to the police unions. According to the municipality of Utrecht, agreements were made with the police unions and the municipality expects no hindrance to the public.

The fault that caused a major disruption to train traffic in and around Amsterdam on Tuesday evening was the result of a software error, which was caused by a unique combination of circumstances after a shoplifter fled into the Schiphol tunnel, rail manager ProRail said, RTL Nieuws reports.

A 14-year-old boy was seriously hurt when he was hit by a train in Assen on Monday afternoon. The incident happened around 3:00 p.m. at the rail crossing on Spoorstraat. The police called it an accident, Dagblad van het Noorden reports.

Witnesses saw the boy lying on the platform after the accident. "Completely covered in blood, I dared not look any closer", one witness said to the newspaper.

Paramedics and a doctor brought by a trauma helicopter stabilized the boy at the scene and then rushed him to hospital by ambulance. 

People who went to see the giant marionettes of Royal de Luxe in Leeuwarden on Sunday, were left stranded by a train disruption. A faulty overhead line meant very limited trains between Zwolle and Meppel, which forms part of the route between Zwolle and Leeuwarden, NU.nl reports.

According to ProRail, about half a kilometer of overhead line was pulled down by a train. This brought train traffic on the route to a complete standstill for a time. From around 6:30 p.m. a limited number of trains could run on one rail on the route. 

The number of victims of accidents at rail crossings in the Netherlands is unacceptably high and must and can be reduced, the Dutch Safety Board said in a report on three serious rail accidents in Winsum, Harlingen and

Fewer trains are running to and from Schiphol on Thursday morning due to a signal failure. Travelers are advised to take extra travel time into account. NS expects the problem to be solved by 10:30 a.m.

A broken train also means that no Intercity Direct trains are running between Schiphol and Breda. When this will be fixed is not yet clear.

Other problems on the track include fewer Sprinters between Tilburg in Boxtel, and no Intercity trains between Eindhoven and Weert. Both these issues should be resolved by 10:30 a.m., according to NS.

Trade unions FNV and CNV reached an agreement with regional public transporters about a new collective bargaining agreement. The nationwide strike that halted bus transport and some train traffic since Wednesday, is therefore over. From Monday everything will run as usual, the unions announced on Sunday, Omroep Brabant reports.

Until 2030 the government is pushing 350 million euros into renovating train stations Amsterdam Centraal and Amsterdam Zuid, to make them able to run more trains and therefore transport more passengers, State Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven of Infrastructure and Water Management said to Dutch parliament, NOS reports.

A man jumped in front of a train in Nootdorp on Monday evening while fleeing from the police after hijacking a car in Rotterdam. He was hit by the train and died at the scene, a spokesperson for the police confirmed to NU.nl.

The man "recklessly" drove over several highways during the chase, the spokesperson said. On the A12 at Nootdorp, the hijacked car suddenly came to a stop. The man got out and jumped in front of a passing train.

A large fire destroyed four business buildings on Nijverheidsstraat in Twello during the early hours of Monday morning. No one was hurt. Asbestos was released in the fire, and some of it ended up on adjacent train tracks. For that reason no trains are running between Apeldoorn and Deventer until at least 10:30 a.m., De Stentor reports.

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.