Was your train cancelled because of copper theft, a fire in a signal box or sabotage on the track? You usually get your money back from NS, even though the cause does not lie with NS itself.
Who is responsible: NS or ProRail?
Damage to cables, overhead lines or signalling equipment from copper theft or sabotage is mostly a matter for ProRail, the track manager. For your compensation as a passenger that makes no difference. You always claim from NS, as the carrier of your journey, regardless of who caused the underlying damage or has to repair it.
Is a delay from sabotage an exceptional circumstance?
Officially, copper theft, vandalism and sabotage fall under the exceptional circumstances in the NS terms. As with a collision on the track, NS in practice often simply pays out on individual claims. This is about your personal delay, not about who ultimately covers the damage to the track.
It is different for a very large, nationally disruptive failure, where thousands of passengers claim at once after a major theft of overhead-line cable on a busy route, for example. NS may then look more strictly at the exceptional-circumstance clause. For the everyday delay you run into from such an incident, that changes nothing.
What you get back
| Delay at your destination | What you get back |
|---|---|
| 30 to 59 minutes | 50% of your fare |
| 60 minutes or more | 100% of your fare |
On the high-speed (HSL) routes this already applies from 15 minutes of delay. Unsure whether your situation counts? Filing a claim costs nothing, so when in doubt filing is always worth it. You can read more about how these grey areas within exceptional circumstances work in our article on your rights during a delay.
Instead of working out for yourself whether your delay from copper theft or sabotage counts, you can also have it handled automatically. Link your OV-pas, OV-chipkaart or OVpay at trein-vertraging.nl and we find and claim every valid delay for you.
