January’s cold snap led to a record number of problems on the Dutch railway network, with more than 700 faults reported over the course of the month.

The number of weather-related faults was 68, nearly three times as many as the previous record of 25 in November 2013, according to figures compiled by website rijdendetreinen.nl.

Most of the problems were in the first week of January, when heavy snow and ice caused huge delays on the roads and railways, particularly in the north and east of the country.

The biggest impact on the railway network was in the west, with Rotterdam Centraal, Leiden Centraal and Schiphol Airport worst hit. The longest delay was between Eindhoven and Heerlen in the south-east, which took 68 hours to fix.

Points failures were the most common defect, with 204 incidents reported, while 203 trains broke down. The total number of incidents was 712, an increase of 56 on last January.