NOS News•
A cargo ship collided with a railway bridge in Gouda. Due to the damage to the Lage Gouwespoorbrug, fewer trains can run, track manager ProRail and the Dutch Railways report.
According to the NS, a track is blocked and two instead of four trains per hour are now running on the route between Alphen aan den Rijn and Gouda. ProRail says that the damage to the railway bridge must first be repaired before all trains can run again.
The railway manager is carrying out an inspection. “The first impression is that there is real damage to the bridge. As a result, we can still allow train traffic, but not over all tracks.”
According to ProRail, it is still too early to say anything about the cause.
A container on the ship, loaded with beer, among other things, also has damage and is partly dented:
Train traffic in Gouda halted after collision with railway bridge
According to public data, the ship departed from the container terminal Alpherium in Alphen aan den Rijn around 04:00. Products from the Heineken brewery in Zoeterwoude, among other things, are transported from that location to the port of Rotterdam.
The collision also has consequences for shipping traffic, reports the Hollands Midden fire brigade. Ships higher than seven meters cannot sail through for the time being, because the bridge does not open.
Another collision in 2018
This is not the first time that an inland vessel has collided with the Lage Gouwespoorbrug. This also happened once in 2018. This collision caused a kind of kink in the side of the bridge, and various parts were deformed. The damage from that collision was only repaired at the end of last year.
“It is very unfortunate that something went wrong so soon after,” says the spokesman for ProRail. “We will look at how things could have gone wrong in a relatively short time.”
