Train traffic across Belgium was seriously disrupted on Wednesday afternoon due to a major IT problem that has now been resolved, national railway operator SNCB announced on social media.
Railway operators SNCB and Infrabel faced technical problems for a while on Wednesday afternoon. Network problems were reported at around 13:00 in Wallonia, after which train traffic in and around Liège, Namur, Ottignies, Bertrix and Libramont was completely halted for 45 minutes.
"By 13:40, the problem had been resolved and train traffic was gradually able to resume. On high-speed lines, trains are still running at a limited speed," announced Infrabel. "Several signal boxes had IT problems. The problem was probably caused by human error during an intervention."
However, there were still issues afterwards: at around 14:00, all trains came to a standstill in the Antwerp-Berchem station and all signals were red, VRT reports. This reportedly also happened in Brussels and Ghent stations.
The SNCB app, online ticket sales and traveller information on the screens in stations, among other things, were also disrupted by the network problem. Everything is now being restarted, but further delays are still possible. However, most of the disruption should be over by the evening rush hour.
