“Today, the Campania Express, which left Naples for Sorrento at 15:36 p.m., got stuck in a tunnel between Castellammare di Stabia and Vico Equense and rail traffic was blocked for hours. The train conductor and the driver did their best to get the unfortunate travellers out of the tunnel in the shortest time and with the least possible inconvenience, by transferring them to the other electric train in the composition, which fortunately was not broken, and they accompanied them to Castellammare di Stabia, safe and understandably upset by the misadventure they had suffered”. This is what Or.SA Autoferro Tpl reports. “We would like to point out – it adds – that this is a “tourist train”, with a higher price than ordinary trains and it connects some tourist/archaeological locations with Naples and Sorrento, the Campania Express which was supposed to be the “pride” of our company, is becoming a source of embarrassment because the promised and (much) vaunted 45 minutes to reach Sorrento are never respected”. “The blocking of a train in a tunnel is a very serious and worrying event – the note continues – but there are some facts that have made the work of the train conductor and the engineer even more difficult and complicated, first of all the mobile telephone network was not working and the train conductor had to walk 2 km on the tracks to find a point where he could call the Central Operations Management and raise the alarm; the steps to easily allow people to get off the tracks and transfer to the other train could not be positioned because the support surface is not flat and there was a risk that someone would slip and then there is the most serious thing, the most disconcerting fact, the train that broke down is Metrostar no. 206, which was the protagonist two Saturdays ago, more or less in the same place, of the same breakdown and which has had similar problems several times in the past, albeit in other parts of the Circumvesuviana railway network, so only and exclusively the expertise of the service personnel ensured that travellers did not run into further dangers”. The Or.SA Union “requests that this train be stopped and completely overhauled, because it is reckless to put it back into circulation with the risk that it stops again, as has already been done culpably several times. We want to know what the “mysterious” causes of this breakdown are and we demand a commission of inquiry to ascertain them, beyond any reasonable doubt. We will invite all train drivers to refuse to drive this train in the future until the truth comes out and the breakdown is eliminated. We believe that it is a dutiful act, first of all to protect the safety of travellers and then to safeguard the health of those who work there and are forced by company failures to operate in situations of extreme stress like this afternoon”.
EDITORIAL TEAM
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