ANPWaiting travelers at Utrecht Central last night
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 17:49
A day after the major train disruption around Utrecht Central station, experts from ProRail are looking for the exact cause of the problems. Train traffic was seriously disrupted at the beginning of the evening rush hour yesterday. Tens of thousands of train passengers were affected by the train disruption around the busiest train station in the Netherlands. What went wrong and how could that happen?
What exactly went wrong?
At 4.54 pm yesterday there was a power outage at Abcoude, just below Amsterdam. Normally, train traffic does not notice this much, because the system that controls the signals and switches works on two so-called power supplies. If one power supply stops working due to a power failure, the other takes over.
But that didn’t work this time and so the system was completely down for a while. “Fortunately, this disruption only lasted a short time and everything was resolved quickly,” says ProRail spokesperson Jeroen Wienen. “Actually, that wasn’t the problem.”
However, the disruption in Abcoude had caused something else. All kinds of systems no longer worked properly along the entire route between Amsterdam and Utrecht, which runs via Abcoude. “It seemed like there were trains on all the tracks,” Wienen said. “Then the track is no longer reliable and you can no longer run trains.”
ProRail is now investigating how the relatively short power outage had so many consequences for the entire railway route. “The problem will be in one of the many systems, but the question is in which system exactly.”
Why did all train traffic around Utrecht come to a standstill?
The power outage therefore led to problems between Amsterdam and Utrecht. But why did that also have major consequences for train traffic in other directions? According to ProRail, some trains were not entirely ideal due to a previous disruption in the direction of Arnhem. In addition, a traffic jam quickly developed with trains that still had to travel over the ‘problem route’ or were coming from it.
“This traffic jam of trains quickly caused a logistical puzzle,” says Wienen. “Some trains from Amsterdam to Utrecht, for example, continue to Eindhoven. But if such a train stands still, that is no longer possible. This also applies to the staff needed to run that train, which is then stuck.”
There was a long wait for travelers at Utrecht Central station last night:
Travelers stuck for hours at Utrecht Central Station: ‘I only came here for guitar lessons’
The railway between Amsterdam and Utrecht is one of the busiest stretches in the Netherlands. There are four tracks next to each other here and during the week at least twelve intercity trains and four local trains run every hour. The trains do not end in Utrecht or Amsterdam, but continue to cities such as Arnhem, Nijmegen, Eindhoven and Maastricht. Or the other way: to Den Helder, Alkmaar and Enkhuizen.
“Because of all those trains, the track near Utrecht was completely full at one point. If something like this happens on the road, you can often drive around it, but we don’t have that luxury on the track.” According to Wienen, the “puzzle of trains and personnel had to be put together again”. And that was only possible by stopping all train traffic around Utrecht Central Station.
Does the previous power outage in Amsterdam have anything to do with it?
Earlier in the day, there was also a power outage in parts of Amsterdam, which prevented trams from running and caused traffic lights to fail. According to ProRail, there are no signals that this earlier power outage has anything to do with the later power outage at Abcoude.
How was the fault resolved?
Around 9:15 p.m. the biggest problems had been resolved and the first trains could depart from Utrecht Central Station again. Carrier NS has a duty to bring people home and says that this was finally achieved last night. According to a spokesperson for the NS, this required some extra trains, as well as a few taxis.
Since this morning, all train traffic around Utrecht has been running normally again, although some trains may be a bit shorter throughout the day because not all trains were in the right place last night.
2024-01-23 16:49:35
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