Sabotage on the Tracks Paralyzes Dutch Rail Network
Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
ProRail says pipes were deliberately placed on tracks at multiple locations across the central and northern Netherlands, causing at least 15 disruptions. Amsterdam, Schiphol, Utrecht, Zwolle, Deventer, and Amersfoort are affected, with no bus replacement possible. Police are investigating; no suspects or motives identified. A train struck one object near Steenwijk, but no injuries were reported.
Materials were found at multiple locations in the track that were deliberately placed there. This causes section malfunctions. Sabotage appears to be involved.
- lrasinen
NOS thinks it's individual farmers getting a bit too frisky: https://nos.nl/artikel/2631141-boerenactivisten-mogelijk-ver...
- apt-get
Just days after a similar (criminal) incident causing a train to derail in France: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/09/12/french-p...
"close to Renault's factory in the town of Cléon", which is now preparing to start manufacturing drones for the French military, in collaboration with Ukrainian military-industrial groups.
- persolb
I do engineering on these systems and have some expertise on this particular class of event. We’ve had tabletop red teams, and the general outcome is that rail systems being designed to ‘fail safe’ is an easy target. Failing safe at an individual actual ‘fault’ is still the best option, but it could be abused at scale.
It’s near impossible to cause two trains to run into each other (unless you are physically operating one of them), but it is really easy to cause all trains in an area to stop because a cross check or a bit has flipped. In this case, they literally flipped a bit by short circuiting the track circuit.
If done at scale, it is still possible to bypass and run trains safely the old fashioned way. It is less safe, but would probably be the decision if this was happening at multiple locations everyday.
- Kim_Bruning
So today's the yearly presentation of the new budget, with protests expected in several places. Whether this sabotage campaign is (part of a) misguided protest action or something else is yet to be determined.
https://nos.nl/liveblog/2631038-nog-steeds-nieuwe-sabotageac... (Use google translate to read)
- sorenjan
A Russian warship fired flares at a Danish military helicopter in international waters in the Baltic sea too.
- HelloUsername
Might be related to today's yearly 'Prinsjesdag' in the Netherlands:
The day on which the reigning monarch of the Netherlands addresses a joint session of the States-General of the Netherlands (consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives) to give the Speech from the Throne (Dutch: Troonrede), similar to the annual State of the Union in the United States or the British State Opening of Parliament. This speech sets out the main features of government policy for the coming parliamentary session.
- Muximize
Farmers protesting new nitrogen emissions regulation. They are also setting hay bales on fire next to highways. The rail sabotage is relatively harmless, the tracks use block signalling so if you use a conductive metal bar or jumper cables to connect the rails, the system thinks a train is present and the preceding signal will stay red.
- walrus01
And on the same day that a (very likely Russian) UAV had to be shot down in Lithuanian air space.
- zergrush
Why do people automatically jump to conclusion that it was Russia in the comments? They haven't even released any evidence or investigation yet in official sense.
- throwaway85825
It's easy enough to make a human level self driving car, that's not the problem. The expectation is not human level it's much closer to perfection. Security is the same way, the expectation requires near zero defection. Western governments have slowly accepted compounding marginal decreases in security assuming it doesn't move the needle much. Now they are reaping the consequences of their ignorance of security posture.