A person was slightly injured on Sunday evening after an explosion in an electrical box of a moving NS train. This happened near Castricum, on the route between Uitgeest and Alkmaar.
The injured passenger was taken to the hospital. Three others were checked by ambulance personnel for smoke inhalation, but did not need to go to the hospital.
It is partly unclear how the passenger was injured. An NS spokesperson told NU.nl that the electrical box is located on the outside of the train and that the explosion caused damage to the inside of the train. The passenger reportedly got something against their head as a result.
A spokesperson for the Noord-Holland-Noord safety region cannot say with certainty whether the electrical box was on the outside of the train. According to her, it is clear that part of the inner wall jumped away during the explosion and hit the passenger.
The cause of the explosion is still being investigated, the NS spokesperson said. “We can very well imagine that travelers were very shocked,” she says. “Fortunately, the consequences have been limited.”
Hundreds of passengers transported with evacuation trains
About six hundred passengers were picked up by evacuation trains. ProRail and NS are now working together to remove the stranded train from the track, the NS spokesperson said.
Travel on the route is expected to resume at 11:30 PM. In the meantime, NS has deployed buses to transport people from Uitgeest to Alkmaar.