The NS advises travelers to check the travel planner before departure on Monday for current information. International trains are not affected by this disruption.
Only on routes of regional carriers will be run on Sunday evening, although the travel information here is not up-to-date either.
“Although the cause of the malfunction has now been resolved, the impact is large,” NS said in a statement. “In order to start reliably, systems must be updated and trains must be brought to the right place. That takes time,” said the NS.
Many people were stuck with their cars at Schiphol because they came to pick up acquaintances because of the train failure. “We have been detained for 5 hours, it was fixed everywhere,” Saskia told De Telegraaf. “No water, no staff. Crying children and angry drivers among themselves. It was only after 3-4 hours that a traffic controller came outside and the barriers opened.” Travelers also report problems at passport control. It’s raining complaints on social media.
Bad luck
Searching on their telephones for accommodation options or other modes of transport, people stand in groups at stations. The forces gathered by the Dutch Railways can do nothing but tell people that no train will run anymore.
“We only hear sorry here and really have no idea how to proceed,” say Laurent and Irena, who are trying to get to Alkmaar from the station in The Hague. They are originally from France and after a day out in the royal city, they had no idea of the problems on the track. “This is something I don’t think is appropriate for the Netherlands.”
The couple is especially surprised at the complete lack of communication. “We just don’t hear anything here except that the trains aren’t running. Nothing has been arranged about buses or other forms of assistance,” Laurent sighs. Together with his girlfriend, he leaves for the center of The Hague in the hope of arranging a hotel.
A little further on are Anton Jansen and his partner Marina Gerbrands. After a day in The Hague, they wanted to take the train back to Doesburg in the Achterhoek around 8 pm. “Tomorrow I will be 90”, sighs the still very fit-looking Anton Jansen. “We would have loved to go home. We are now trying to reach people to help us, but it is not very successful yet. So it’s just a matter of looking for a hotel. This is all a bit special.”
It was chaos earlier in the day. This is also the case at Utrecht Central Station, where people were hardly informed. On the deserted platforms under the departure hall, the Italian Rafaella Fazi (25) and Azzura Fazi (22) unsuspectingly take place in an empty train. Are they aware of the outage? The ladies, who are on holiday in our country, look to see if they see water burning. “So we can’t go to Rotterdam?” Rafaella asks in amazement in poor English. The sisters are visibly disappointed when they are told that there are no trains running for the time being. “Then let’s go shopping here”, is the conclusion.
Later in the evening, it is mainly tourists who are the victims of the major NS failure at Utrecht Central Station. With a large suitcase, the French Benjamin (26) waits in vain for a train that can take him back to Amsterdam. He is under the assumption that there will be another train later in the evening, around 11 p.m. “Look, my travel app shows that,” he says indignantly. However, there will be no trains until approximately 4 AM. When asked whether he is going to spend the night at the station, he has no answer. “I really don’t know what to do now,” he says, bewildered.
The same goes for Anastasia (25) from Latvia. She studies in Groningen and came to Utrecht with the last ICE from the south of the country, but now her journey has come to a halt. A taxi from Utrecht to Groningen is not an option. “Too expensive,” she says, showing the price on the uber app. It indicates no less than 443 euros. “I can’t afford that,” she stammers. That is why the student approaches people in the hope that she can ride with someone to the north.
Although many stranded travelers hope that the NS will reimburse their expensive taxi ride or hotel stay, the chance of this is nil. “As it stands now, we will not reimburse that, no matter how annoying that is. For the time being, we assume the self-reliance of our travelers and hope to be able to restart the timetable as soon as possible,” says an NS spokesperson.
Text continues below the tweet.
IT system
A spokesperson for the NS says that an essential IT system is down. “This morning there was no current travel information in the NS app, but we are currently also experiencing a malfunction in the system that links employees to trains. Normally that planning system is continuously updated, because it doesn’t work now, we have come to the difficult decision not to use trains until at least 8 p.m..” Later in the evening it became clear that the timetable is out all evening.
hack
There is no reason to think that it is a possible hack of the system, the NS can further report. The decision to stop driving is one you’d rather not take, but not only was there no up-to-date travel information for travelers, there were also problems behind the scenes. For example, the malfunction made it difficult to rearrange personnel and trains if, for example, there was a delay somewhere.
Taxi drivers had a good Sunday due to the train failure, which left stranded travelers reliant on other modes of transport to reach their destination.
Royal Dutch Transport, representing approximately 5000 to 8000 taxis in the so-called ‘boarding market’, estimates that the additional public transport made about a quarter more journeys due to the train failure. Spokesperson Hilbert Michel bases this on a rough estimate from Amsterdam “and that will not make much difference in other regions.”
According to Michel, the extra clientele not only led to more, but also to longer taxi rides. He calls it a boost for the troubled taxi industry, “although it is an unpleasant situation for travelers.”