International business travel between the UK and continental Europe faces fresh disruption after a cable-duct fire near Rotterdam forced Dutch infrastructure manager ProRail to close part of the high-speed line on 30 June 2026. Eurostar has suspended through-services between London St Pancras and Amsterdam/Rotterdam until at least Friday, 3 July, truncating trains at Brussels-Midi. In a statement to Anadolu Agency, Eurostar said repairs were ongoing but that engineers needed to replace more than 600 metres of damaged cabling before signalling could be re-energised. Services between London, Brussels and Paris continue to run, albeit with delays of up to 60 minutes because trains are being diverted via Utrecht and slot capacity is restricted. Affected passengers can rebook or claim full refunds; corporate travel managers should note that ticket-exchange fees are being waived and that seat availability is already tight on remaining departures ahead of the 4 July holiday weekend in the United States. Travellers holding onward air connections from Schiphol are being advised to route via Brussels Zaventem or fly direct from London. For companies that routinely rotate staff between UK and Dutch sites—particularly in tech and life-sciences clusters around Amsterdam and Leiden—the outage underscores the importance of multi-modal contingencies built into travel policies. Employers should also revisit duty-of-care briefings; Eurostar has warned that replacement coach travel is limited and that temperatures on diverted trains may exceed 30 °C during Europe’s ongoing heatwave. Looking ahead, ProRail is assessing whether additional fire-suppression upgrades are needed across the Betuweroute. If mandated, further weekend closures are likely in August, potentially clashing with the peak expatriate-relocation season.
Source: Anadolu Agency
