The chief executive of ProRail, the state-owned company which runs the Dutch railway network, has resigned with immediate effect.

According to the Telegraaf, Marion Gout’s snap decision to step down was prompted by its revelations that the number of track breakdowns has risen 25% since 2011.

Gout joined the company in 2011, when there were 1,846 registered track problems. Last year, this had risen to 2,312, the Telegraaf says. A large number of these problems affect the main urban networks, the paper says.

ProRail itself says the increase in breakdowns is due a large number of factors outside its control including the weather, people walking on the tracks, copper thieves and suicides.

A spokesman for rail users’ association Rover said Gout’s position had become untenable and that her target of zero problems could never be realised.