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Train system shot due to storm - but good service

by Reinout van Rees — last modified Oct 08, 2007 03:59 PM
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Last evening, a storm blew over parts of Europe. In the Netherlands, the entire train system was shut down at the end of the afternoon, leaving me stuck in Eindhoven (I worked on location for our customer Philips).

Conference hotel in Eindhoven

I went into the city for a quick bite and returned to see if there were any changes: no. So I went back into the city to see the latest James Bond (great movie). I saw it together with my brother that was also stuck in Eindhoven. We both left the customer at a different time, as I heard about specific problems on my route. So I finally really used my mobile phone :-)

After returning to the station, the train traffic was still stuck. But the municipality of Eindhoven had arranged for lodging for stranded travellers and took us by bus to a nearby conference center. I had resigned myself to temporary sleeping arrangements in a sports hall or so, but we got really decent hotel rooms with individual showers and so.

All in all: a pretty enjoyable evening with lots of great service by the NS (national railways, they were friendly and tried to give as much information as possible; also a lot of their own employees were stranded) and the local municipality. Thanks!

I've got a video of the storm at Eindhoven station , not that it's particularly spectacular or so, but I liked the way the sky looked once part of the dark cloud cover blew away.

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