NOS News•today, 05:07
Unguarded railway crossings have been closed or secured at 150 locations in the Netherlands in recent years. This is evident from figures that NOS requested from ProRail. The railway manager started a project in 2018 to close the most dangerous crossings, after a series of fatal accidents.
With the closure of two locations in Diepenveen today, there are now 28 unguarded crossings left that, according to ProRail, are so dangerous that they must close at short notice. The railway manager hopes to arrange this at thirteen of these this year, but it will take longer for the other locations.
Monitored vs. unattended
The Netherlands has almost 2,000 railway crossings: locations where a railway line crosses a road or a pedestrian or cycle path. Most are secured crossings, recognizable by red and white striped barriers that close the road when a train arrives and make warning sounds. But at some crossings such an installation with bells and/or barriers has never been installed.
These unguarded railway crossings are usually located in rural areas in quieter locations, such as footpaths or crossings between meadows. People who want to pass through the crossing will not receive a warning in advance when a train is approaching. So they have to decide for themselves when they cross. The trains often run at full speed, varying between 120 and 140 kilometers per hour.
In this video, farmer Jan Roelof explained a few years ago what makes passing such a transition so exciting:
Jan Roelof has to cross the unguarded track every day: ‘No fear, but tension’
Because accidents often occurred at these types of level crossings, ProRail started a program six years ago to close the 180 most dangerous ones. “The majority of this job has now been completed,” says ProRail spokesperson Mirjam de Witte. “By the end of 2025, we aim to have 170 of the 180 unsupervised crossings closed.”
And although not all unguarded crossings are closed yet, ProRail is already seeing positive results. “For example, the average number of collisions at unguarded crossings has been halved. And this also applies to the number of deaths,” De Witte explains. “In 2014, an average of 2.8 deaths occurred annually at an unguarded crossing, but that figure has now been halved.”
Accident Hooghalen
At the same time, the current figure also shows that things still go wrong from time to time. This was also the case in 2020, when an NS train collided with a tractor that was crossing an unguarded railway crossing on the track near Hooghalen in Drenthe. The driver had not seen the approaching train. The train driver died in the accident.
Research subsequently showed that unguarded railway crossings are much more dangerous than previously thought, especially because heavy traffic often passes over them. Moreover, this heavy traffic takes much longer to pass the level crossing, which increases the risk of an accident.
From then on, trains moved slower over the most dangerous unguarded level crossings, 90 kilometers per hour. Hundreds of NS trains were also given different colors at the front to make them more noticeable and more work was done to quickly close or adjust the most dangerous unguarded crossings.
This map shows which transitions are still open:
“We would of course have liked to close them all already,” says De Witte. “But you run into all kinds of things.” Various circumstances make it difficult to close or change the transitions that remain. “The last 28 are not the last 28 for nothing,” said De Witte.
All kinds of things can play a role in this, for example a rare animal such as the slow worm that lives on the site, which means that work is not allowed. Or sometimes it is difficult to stop train traffic at the junction. Other times, negotiations with landowners lead to delays. “We always listen to everyone,” says De Witte. “People who live around it, the local walking club that sees the permanent walking route disappearing. We really try to make it tailor-made.”
The costs are high. According to ProRail, installing railway barriers with light and sound has a price tag of one million euros. “And making a tunnel as an alternative is not cheap either,” says De Witte. But the ministry has allocated money to close or adapt the dangerous crossings. And according to ProRail, it will work within the budget. The aim now is to have all dangerous unsecured crossings removed by 2027.
