Samenvatting

In the spring of 2013, the Dutch railway operator, High Speed Alliance, cancelled the acceptance procedures for V250 high-speed train sets they ordered from Italian manufacturer AnsaldoBreda after numerous problems with the build quality and safety systems. It is the latest chapter in a series of failed attempts to build and run a high-speed railway link between Amsterdam and Paris. Inevitably, the question of who was responsible for the decision to order the V250 has become prominent. We study 20 years of public decision-making by analysing the content of over 1,200 documents. Using David’s and Arthur’s theory of path-dependency, we conclude that all the decisions that were taken during those two decades created a situation in which the choice for the V250 was nothing more than an inevitable gamble. It can therefore be concluded that all parties involved, from the railway operator to Parliament, have contributed to the current failure.