with videoA freight train with hybrid cars caught fire at Etten-Leur this afternoon. This happened after the train had broken the overhead wires. Fire started in several parts of the long train. The damage is extensive, according to ProRail, train traffic between Roosendaal and Breda will be stopped until 8 p.m. on Thursday evening.
Timo Akkermans, Sjoerd Marcelissen and Marieke van Gompel
14 Sep. 2022
Latest update:
20:55
About sixty cars caught fire around 1:10 p.m. Thirty of them burned out completely. The fire was under control around 3.10 pm, but the damage is extensive.
According to the safety region, the cars caught fire after the train of freight carrier DB Cargo had broken the overhead wires. As a result, overhead wires fell on the cars. The sparks that came from there, according to bystanders, one car after another caught fire.
The freight train is loaded with hundreds of passenger cars. The safety region has announced that no hazardous substances have been released.
One car after another caught fire
Eyewitnesses reported that the overhead wires hit the cars and that several cars were subsequently set on fire. Then the cables of the overhead wires, from which the power was turned off, lay like a loop over the cars.
Cleaning up is a big job
It will take until 8 p.m. on Thursday evening before train traffic resumes, ProRail reports. The train must first be removed from the track, after which the railway manager must start the repair work. Part of the train can be towed to the shunting yard at Roosendaal station, but other parts have to be towed from the track one by one. Over the length of one kilometer, the overhead wires must be repaired.
According to a spokesman for DB Cargo, the freight train was on its way to Vlissingen.
Because the break in the catenary must be repaired, it is expected that no trains will run between Roosendaal and Breda until 2 a.m. tonight. The NS uses stop buses between Breda and Etten-Leur and Roosendaal and Etten-Leur.
“We want to have the track repaired as soon as possible, so that the trains can run again,” says a spokesperson for ProRail. Because the train is still on the track at the moment, it is difficult to say what the damage will be to the track. the track and overhead wires.
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Tags: hybrid cars freight train fire due catenary break train traffic flat tomorrow evening Inland
