The Netherlands had 277 passive railway crossings (Dutch: Niet Actief Beveiligde Overwegen, or simply NABO) in 2018.

[4] The train involved, the Sprinter New Generation (SNG), is based on the Civity platform by Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles.

[6] These trains have a dark blue and white coloured livery at the front section, together with a large window looking into the driver's cabin.

[9] On 22 May 2020 at 15:24 CEST (13:24 UTC), two sets of SNG trains[10] of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) coupled together departed Zwolle towards Groningen as Sprinter 8149.

[4] Around the same time, a tractor with a trailer filled with around 18 tonnes (40,000 lb)[11] of sand approached crossing 38.6 of the Meppel–Groningen railway.

The train was going 137 kilometres per hour (85 mph), when the front camera stopped saving footage 345 metres (1,132 ft) away from the crossing, without a sight of the tractor.

[4] Five seconds after the collision, the control center of ProRail monitoring railway infrastructure is alerted that no current is running through two groups of overhead cables near Hooghalen anymore.

At 16:08, the public safety answering points (PSAP) of the NS and ProRail are notified after the train conductor reported a collision.

[17] The train driver only saw the tractor 150 metres (490 ft) before the crossing and initiated an emergency brake just three seconds before impact.

[11] According to the final report, released in February 2021, lack of visibility in the poor weather is assumed to be the reason as to why the tractor driver did not see the train coming and proceeded to cross the tracks.

[19] In November 2022, the public prosecutor demanded a punishment of 180 hours of community service against the tractor driver, as well as a one-year driving ban.

The prosecution claimed that the accident was caused by "significant inattentive driving behavior" of the driver, who was calling someone on the phone at the time.

[20] The driver defended himself by saying that he leaned his head forward because of the drizzle and fog, and looked both ways multiple times without seeing a train.

Alternative seats such as the ones used in the FLIRT and Sprinter Lighttrains were proposed by the Federation of Dutch Trade Unions, but according to NS these are neither suitable nor allowed in the cabin of the SNG.