Around 50 rail passengers spent 4.5 hours stuck on a train that had broken down between Berchem and Lier (both Antwerp Province) on Monday. The train that was en route to Herentals (Antwerp Province) broke down at around 4pm. It wasn’t until 8.30pm that passengers were able to change onto another train at Berchem Station in Antwerp. Britt Monten of the rail operator NMBS told VRT News that the train could be evacuated earlier as it would have been far too dangerous to do so while it was between stations.
The train left Berchem Station for Herentals just before 4pm. Just after 4pm it broke down before it reached Lier. It wasn’t until 8.30 that the train returned to Berchem and the passengers were able to continue their journeys on another train.
Around 50 passengers were aboard the train. Britt Monten of the rail service operator NMBS told VRT News that "It wasn’t possible to evacuate them. The train was between 2 stations and we couldn’t allow passengers to alight onto the track. That would be life- threateningly dangerous”.
Noorderkempen
Monday’s incident came less than a week after passengers were stuck for 5 hours on a broken down near to Noorderkempen Station in Brecht (Antwerp Province). This all begs the question of whether NMBS couldn’t evacuate broken down trains quicker.
Brit Monten says that "Each time incidents of this magnitude occur we look at how exactly it was able to happen and how we deal with it better in the future”.
"It is of course not the intention that a train remains stationary for so long. We always do all we can to get the service running as quickly as we can. These technical issues show how important it is to invest in new trains and in maintenance”.
The passengers concerned can ask for a refund through NMBS’ Customer Service Department.