‘If such a train with hazardous substances derails, all of Mierlo-Hout will be gone!’

If you walk along the Houtse Parallelweg in Helmond, you walk into another era every fifty meters or so. First you will find 1930s houses, then monumental buildings in the Heimat style, then a row of newly built houses from a few years ago, followed by rental houses from the 1980s. Parallel to this non-chronological timeline is a train track, over which passenger trains whiz and freight trains rumble every day.

The number of freight trains between the Netherlands and Germany has been increasing for years. Last year, more than a hundred copies drove on the Brabant route on the busiest days, according to Numbers of rail manager ProRail. The Brabant Route is the railway line that runs from Zwijndrecht to Venlo. The track along the Houtse Parallelweg is part of this. Some of those freight trains carry hazardous substances, such as ammonia, propane and chlorine.

The trains are sometimes butt to butt

Maria Paulus living on Parallelweg

“Terrible!” says Maria Pouussen (77). She has just left her rented house on Parallelweg, handbag and car keys in hand. “It’s like more and more are coming. The trains are sometimes butt to butt; that they really have to hold back until the other one is a bit further.”

Lots of drone

According to Pouussen, the freight trains cause “a lot of noise” inside. “They just came here to build the wall. It was completely torn.” She walks to the side of her corner house and points to a patch of outside wall where fresh cement has been placed between the bricks. And then she hasn’t even mentioned the trains with dangerous goods. “If such a train derails, all of Mierlo-Hout is gone!” she says, using the name of the village that merged into the Helmond-‘t Hout district.

Also read this article: ProRail has ‘more work than ever’: a quarter of work is at risk of delay

Recently, a group of concerned residents of the Houtse Parallelweg had a letter sent to the Helmond city council. Pouussen did not participate, because she only heard about the letter after it had already been sent. The many wagons with hazardous substances give the letter writers a feeling of insecurity: “Should something happen, the consequences are incalculable.” The many freight trains also cause noise nuisance and cracks in their walls. They call on the responsible alderman to send “a strong signal” in The Hague “that this cannot continue like this”.

Mayors sounded the alarm

Some of the residents of the Houtse Parallelweg who NRC spoke, six in total, are convinced that the number of trains carrying dangerous goods has increased in recent years. But that is not the case, according to figures from ProRail: the number has been virtually stable for years.

Last January, Brabant mayors, including that of Helmond, nevertheless sounded the alarm in The Hague, via a letter to State Secretary Vivianne Heijnen (Infrastructure and Water Management, CDA), which has been viewed by NRC. The fact that the number of trains carrying hazardous substances has not increased does not necessarily mean that the concerns of local residents are unfounded. The number of freight trains on the Brabant route will increase in the near future and this may include trains with hazardous substances.

Freight trains transport hazardous substances such as ammonia, propane and chlorine

The reason is that from the end of 2024, there will be work on the Betuweroute for a year and a half. Part of the freight trains that normally run on the Betuweroute will then have to travel to and from Germany via the Brabantroute. In addition, ProRail is committed to even more freight transport by train, because this mode of transport is “very sustainable”, wrote the railway manager on its website in February.

Moreover, many homes are being built in Brabant. Many intended locations for this are close to the railway, because the plan is to build ‘inner city’ as much as possible. “The risk of an accident threatens to increase due to a further increase in the amount of hazardous substances transported on the Brabant railway. While a potential accident will affect more local residents,” the mayors write in the letter. They request the State Secretary to take on a “coordinating directing role” with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by rail.

“In the Netherlands, the chance of someone living next to the railway dying due to an accident involving a hazardous substance should not exceed one in a million,” says Nils Rosmuller, lecturer in energy and transport safety at the Netherlands Institute for Public Safety. “So that’s a pretty slim chance.” But in addition to the individual risk, there is also the group risk. “No one loses sleep over six hundred road deaths a year, but when those deaths all fall at once, everyone is in turmoil. If you look at the Brabant route, the individual risk is fine, but the group risk is a tricky issue. There is not such a hard legal standard for that risk as for that with individuals, but quite a lot of people live along the Brabant route.”

Toxic substances

The consequences of an accident involving a train carrying hazardous substances depend on various factors, says Rosmuller. If the substances are very toxic and you live directly next to the railway, the risk of death is greater than if it concerns flammable gases and you live twenty or thirty meters away. And time also plays a role: how quickly is the substance released? “And what are the weather conditions?”

In December derailed in Serbia a train carrying ammonia. More than fifty people suffered from poisoning symptoms. A spokesman for ProRail says that “experts at ProRail” indicate that “all accidents involving freight trains abroad could not have happened in the Netherlands”, because “our safety systems are so good”. “Should an incident nevertheless occur, clear agreements have been made in advance with the fire brigade and government authorities.”

Also read this article: One dead and at least thirty injured in serious train accident in Voorschoten

Last April responded State Secretary Heijnen to the concerned letter from the mayors of Brabant. She wrote that she had “heard” their “signal” well and that she wants to continue talking to them. But she also believes that attention should not be paid so much to the number of people living along the track or the number of trains with hazardous substances, but to safety measures and their supervision.

Helmond alderman Arno Bonte (mobility, GroenLinks) says that a group of deputy mayors is indeed still talking to Heijnen. “We have sent out an initial signal, but our concerns have not yet been sufficiently translated by the State Secretary.”

Bonte still has to talk to the letter writers of the Houtse Parallelweg, but he “completely shares their concerns”. “You have to look at the best route for those dangerous trains. And that is not necessarily the shortest, but the one that causes the least nuisance and therefore passes through urban areas as little as possible. The State Secretary must look for good alternatives.”

Betuweroute

In answers to parliamentary questions on the subject, Heijnen wrote that the Betuweroute is “not always” the “most logical” choice when looking at the destination and origin of goods. There are other options for transporting hazardous substances, for example via pipelines, trucks and ships. But, says Heijnen, as long as producers adhere to international safety requirements, they can decide for themselves how they want the substances transported.

Incidentally, not all residents of the Houtse Parallelweg are concerned. “No no. My husband worked for the railroad for forty years; we just came to live here for the trains,” says Maria van der Heijden (76) in the doorway of her house. “And did you ever hear that anything has happened here as long as our age? Never.”

Also read this interview with former inspector Wim Beukenkamp: ‘The problems on the track are mainly related to the management of NS’