Fyra

December 2012 was the start of the new high-speed train, Fyra, connecting Amsterdam to Brussels. Unfortunately, the trains coped with many technical problems from the beginning onwards. Those technical issues set in motion a chain of unfortunate events that eventually caused the suspension of the service on January 18, 2013. Due to this suspension, reputations were at risk, NS, NMBS, and AnsaldoBreda faced a difficult crisis to manage. This thesis analyzes the organizational statements of the NS, NMBS, and AnsaldoBreda within the framework of Benoit’s (1997) Image Restoration Theory in order to investigate the attempts of the image repair discourse of each of the three organizations. Company statements in press releases and Dutch newspapers were selected in a specific time frame. Qualitative content analysis was used as the method. It was found that NS has used four strategies intertwiningly (defeasibility, mortification, shift of blame, and bolstering) while NMBS was more straightforward and used only two strategies (shift of blame, and bolstering). In contrast, AnsaldoBreda used five strategies over time to repair its image (simple denial, mortification, minimization, bolstering, and victimization). Overall, this thesis extends and builds on existing scholarship in crisis communication in general and image restoration in particular.