Rail company forced to suspend services due to staff shortages
The Belgian rail company NMBS has been forced to temporarily suspend around ten of its P-Train commuter services to and from Brussels due to staff shortages. A growing number of rail workers are having to take time off work either due to illness or because they have to quarantine. The temporary suspension of the services will take effect from Monday.
In a statement released on Saturday afternoon NMBS said “Due to the evolution of the pandemic and the growing number of infections NMBS is being confronted more and more with staff that are absent either due to illness or because they are in quarantine at home. These are above all staff that work on the ground”.
NMBS adds that it has already taken a number of measures to limit the impact on passengers of the high level of absenteeism. Despite this, every day it is being forced to cancel services at short notice due to staffing issues.
In order to prevent this from happening during the coming weeks the rail company has decided to temporarily suspend some commuter services in order to be certain of having enough staff to allow the rest of the services on the timetable to run as planned.