Pipes on the rails halt trains across the Dutch centre and north

Dutch rail manager ProRail said materials had been “deliberately placed” on tracks at multiple sites before dawn on Tuesday, 15 September, forcing signals to show occupied and stopping trains through the centre and north of the country. Spokeswoman Joke van der Cruysen told the Associated Press the company suspected sabotage. National police opened an investigation. No suspect or motive was named.

Workers found the first sections of pipe at about 5.30 a.m. A train struck debris near Steenwijk. There were no injuries. By afternoon ProRail had counted more than 30 disruptions. Steel pipes up to two metres long were found in at least five places in Gelderland. NOS filmed officers carrying tubes about 1.5 metres long away from tracks at Veenendaal. Jumper cables linking rails were also recovered. Both tricks fool the system that detects a train and turn signals red.

Services around Zwolle, Deventer and Amersfoort took the worst of the morning peak. The Reisplanner journey app failed during the rush. Some level crossings stayed closed and spilled the delay onto roads. NS, the passenger operator, said trains would resume gradually after midday. ProRail said pipes reappeared at sites already cleared. Fires were set along highways the same day.

Prinsjesdag, and a denial

Tuesday was Prinsjesdag, the third Tuesday in September, when the cabinet presents the budget in The Hague. Extinction Rebellion said it had vandalised the ceremonial site and that it was not responsible for the railway or the highway fires. ProRail interim chief Mirjam van Velthuizen said the day showed “how dependent the Netherlands is on a well-functioning railway network.”

Eurostar was asked about knock-on effects. The immediate problem was domestic: a dense country that moves its morning on rails, with a signalling system that treats a pipe as a train. Coordinated placement at dozens of points is harder than a single act of vandalism. Reappearance after clearance is harder still. That is why ProRail used the word sabotage before it had a name.

By mid-afternoon most routes were coming back. Inspectors were still walking track. The political calendar will absorb the budget speech. The operational file is with the police unit that now has a pile of pipe, a set of cables, and a map of more than thirty red signals that should have been green.