Dutch railways faced massive outages during rush hour on Tuesday, with the company responsible for the maintenance of the rail lines stating they believe the outage may have been caused by sabotage."Material has been found at several locations. It appears that this material was deliberately placed on the tracks. We suspect sabotage," said Joke van der Cruysen, a spokesperson for the railway infrastructure company ProRail, in an interview with The Associated Press."The police are currently involved and are actively investigating the cause and the reasons behind this.”The outage occurred Tuesday morning, just as hundreds of thousands of Dutch people were getting ready to board trains on their way to work.The outages mainly affected those in the less busy central and eastern regions of the Netherlands, but some routes in the busy western part of the country were also affected.The cities of Zwolle, Deventer, and Amersfoort were the most affected by the outages, with much of the eastern Netherlands facing train delays and outages..Reports from the country claim that metal pipes were attached to the tracks, which were deliberately intended to trigger safety warnings that would force the closure of certain sections of the railway.The widespread nature of the outages, as well as the discovery of the metal pipes, are the reason why Dutch authorities believe the outages were an act of sabotage.Authorities have not confirmed if they have any suspects at this moment, but ProRail has confirmed that it will be removing the disrupting material with the utmost care to allow police to conduct a thorough investigation while allowing for trains to begin running again."We wear gloves so that the police can eventually check for fingerprints and the like," van der Cruysen said, "and, of course, we try to get train traffic up and running again as soon as possible.”Dutch police confirmed an investigation was underway and stated that as of now, no organization or individual has claimed responsibility for the disruption.Authorities also confirmed that as material was removed from the tracks, trains slowly began returning and running as normal.The outage occurred the same day as thousands of people were expected to descend on The Hauge, where the Dutch royal family is due to ride through the city on a horse-drawn carriage to appear as the government is set to present its annual budget to parliament.It appears that on a day facing such significant transport disruption, the Dutch royal families' choice for such antiquated transportation may be an unintentional stroke of good luck.
