No one yet knows the cause of the disruption. They tried to first repair it but were obviously unsuccessful. “Everything was put in place to evacuate the passengers, but it turned out to be possible to have the train go to Rotterdam,” said the NS spokesperson to NU.nl. However, they don’t know how the train could magically run three hours later. The train stopped working somewhere in the middle of Breda and Rotterdam, a place which was difficult for evacuation buses or a tow truck to reach.
A spokesperson told RTL News, “It took a long time before we could help the passengers. We find that extremely annoying. In the end, the train went further to Rotterdam. We really find it very annoying that it went that way, because this is not the intention.”
Compensation
All the passengers will be receiving compensation for their train travel that was disrupted because of the three-hour delay on the train. They will all be reimbursed the money for the ticket, including the intercity direct train supplement.
However, any plans that were missed or cancelled as a consequence of this will not be reimbursed. There were people who even missed a concert because of this, and NS responded saying that they would not get their money back.
How unsurprised or surprised are you that this happened? Let us know in the comments below!
It was funny to see the next headline while the article was talking about “no water” 🙂
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I travel daily by train. Imust say trains in netherlands are not reliable in terms of services and money wise. For some small small reasons trains gets delayed or cancelled.
As a consumer from NS of 3 years, I’m not surprised whatsoever. The service with NS is highly inconsistent; numerous times I requested refunds for delays and there’s always some excuse, and when I did get a refund, I always received past due limit of waiting period and have had to call to request the refund. The system to request refunds is not user friendly, specially if you don’t speak Dutch.