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Due to a signalling error NS' track controllers sent an in service passenger DB ICE service onto the Betuweroute freight only line. Train brought to a stop reversed back to passenger network and the service resumed.

https://twitter.com/viennafan2020/status/1340610843537530881 (https://twitter.com/viennafan2020/status/1340610843537530881)

'Wrong stick' errors aren't that rare and circumstances will determine if the driver accepts the wrong route - part of his route knowledge.  I suspect most times a driver manages to stop before the junction signal and get it reset but occasionally there are other factors at play. I give an example on the Underground (http://www.districtdave.co.uk/html/confession_time.html) from the late District Dave (Dave Mahoney) about his excursion up the blue line with a green train at Hanger Lane.

I wouldn't be so impertinent to ask II if he had ever taken "a wrong 'un", but I bet he knows colleagues who have :)

One of the few minor misdemeanour's I haven't fallen foul of.  :)  As you say, not common but certainly happens - though in this day and age with more areas under ARS (Automatic Route Setting) it seems to be much rarer.

There?s a famous story of a west of England express which was routed onto the Henley Branch many years ago.

The trains had come out of Paddington in a different order and the message hadn?t reached the signalman at Twyford.

Thankfully the train took the curve sufficiently slowly that it didn?t derail but the signalman handed in his notice the next morning.

The only time I have been on a train that was wrongly routed and started to move was at Preston a few years ago. From the down local platform on the west side of the station there are lots of trains going to Blackpool. The one I was on was for Heysham but a few seconds after we started the driver applied the brakes. I was sat facing forwards on the left hand side so was able to see that the route on the signal was set for the Blackpool line.

Worse things happen as seaWokingham. You can fall off the end of the worldthird rail.

The solution there is, of course, to extend the third rail to join up with the other end near Guildford.

This is the site of the incident

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ferguson+Bridge/@51.9198164,6.0859786,1295m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x47c798b4135ce169:0xaa7f75977b46149a!2sZevenaar,+Netherlands!3b1!8m2!3d51.9345728!4d6.0741029!3m4!1s0x47c79f7bdfe8b731:0x126cc838076fbc31!8m2!3d51.9184282!4d6.090425

I presume a major investigation is in hand now, the geography of the track being fortunate that an ICE travelling at normal speed had time to initiate an emergency stop on a straight piece of track. the screeching of the brakes is quite audible on the Twitter video (apparently videographed by a 12 year old incidentally). The freight track divirges off and enters a tunnel shortly after the straight part shown on the Google Map above.

Considering much of Europe uses speed-based rather than route-based signalling, would there even have been an explicit route indication shown to the driver in this case?

I've only once been on a train that was wrongly routed, back in the 1970s.  I boarded at Victoria to travel to Denmark Hill on the South London line.  The train arrived fine at the first station, Battersea Park, but at the wrong platform.  If it had carried on it would have gone towards the south not the east, and off to heaven knows where.  The problem was easily sorted.  The driver got out and walked up to the signal box 100 yards away.  A few minutes he got back on, reversed far enough to clear the points that had been wrongly set, and then continued on the correct route.  Ah, nostalgia for the older ways of working.

I was thinking myself this too Zoe. I have without success tried to look up the signalling system in use on this line which is at the lowest end of the high speed spectrum in the Netherlands being between 100 & 200 km/h only.

Still maybe a signalled speed reduction gave the driver a clue, or if restrictive, meant he/she had time to stop close to the junction. Likewise if it were cab signalling with Repere boards (I can't see over the high boundary walls on Google Streetview), I doubt there is any indication of the route ahead being pure speed signalling.

We were on a Hertfordshire Railtour on a Eurostar rail tour to Paris via the old route from Calais. Just South of Amien we came to very fast halt. We later learnt the signalman had routed us back to the high speed line instead of the traditional route. He'd seen a TGV and thought it should be back on the LGV.

Just remembered a trip on the Manchester Metro that went wrong. I was heading for the East Lancs Railway and got on a tram at Picadilly that said it was going to Bury. We called at Picadilly Gardens and when we started again I saw the route Indicator pointing left the driver took the route and then stopped apologised for going the wrong way and let us get off. I could see a tram approaching from the south so I got off and nipped round the corner to Market street.

I've also been on a Padd Reading semi on the Down Relief which got the feather for the Greenford branch at West Ealing. Early days of the IECC i think it got confused because we normally be on the Down Main at West Ealing so thought we were the Greenford shuttle. Fortuanetly we stopped in time for the route to be reset.