Overview
- A fire in a cable duct beside the tracks near Rotterdam Stadion damaged a concentrated run of cables on Monday, forcing ProRail to stop trains between Rotterdam and Breda.
- ProRail announced late Tuesday that services on the Breda–Rotterdam section will remain suspended until at least Saturday around 15:00 as inspections and repairs continue.
- About 300 cables were checked after the blaze and roughly 100 need individual inspection and re-welding, work that requires multiple specialist contractors and is time-consuming.
- International routes are affected: UK-origin trains are terminating in Brussels, Rotterdam–London services are paused for days, and trains between the Netherlands, Brussels and Paris are being rerouted via Utrecht.
- Passengers face long delays, missed connections and risks of missed flights, and the longer closure raises the need for derusting unused tracks before normal services can resume.