Eurostar issues "do not travel" warning for London-Amsterdam route

Eurostar has issued a "do not travel" warning after a track fire south of Rotterdam forced the operator to cancel numerous trains between London and Amsterdam. Cross-border travel will face severe disruptions until at least Thursday evening while emergency repairs take place.

Rotterdam rail fire paralyzes Netherlands train connections

A serious fire broke out in a cable duct near Rotterdam Stadion, completely halting rail traffic on the high-speed line. The fire was triggered by severe overheating following recent intense thermal stress on the network, according to the railway infrastructure manager, ProRail.

The damage is extensive, requiring technicians to completely replace 299 electronic cables inside the ruined duct. This bottleneck has entirely disabled vital signalling and switch mechanisms, cutting off key routes connecting Rotterdam to southern hubs like Breda and Dordrecht.

The disruption is set to last until Thursday evening, July 2, 2026, reported by rail website Treinreiziger. Because the high-speed tracks are entirely blocked, all international services travelling from the Netherlands towards Belgium, France, and the UK are heavily impacted.

Eurostar cancels key routes across the Dutch border

The infrastructure failure has forced Eurostar to axe multiple high-speed services between London St Pancras, Rotterdam Centraal, and Amsterdam Centraal. Several trains were forced to terminate short of their destinations on Monday, leaving hundreds of stranded passengers looking for alternative transit options, NL Times reported.

The international travel chaos coincides with domestic rail cuts across the Randstad region. The national rail operator, NS, had already reduced the frequency of intercity services on five major domestic routes due to separate heat and storm damage, compounding delays for long-distance commuters.

Eurostar explicitly advises that people in the Netherlands should avoid attempting cross-border rail travel until July 3, 2026. The company stated that train services across the country will remain "severely disrupted and extremely limited" with no alternative options available.

"We recommend that you do not attempt to travel to or from the Netherlands until July 3," the company stated. "Instead, please cancel your journey or postpone it to a later date."