Goodbye night trains: couchette in retirement

From December, Torino and Rome will no longer be linked due to the cancellation of the sleeper class wagons.

The operators

11^th December is the date which marks the end for the train services with couchette which from Sicily and Calabria passed the country and arrived to North Italy. Which marks the end of an era: that of infinite journeys which the immigrants from South undertook to arrive to Milan or Turin. Those of the vacations to the sea. Now, the passengers have to find an alternative route: maybe airplane or maybe an itinerary made of different stops, and trains called "fast", as the latest Freccia Rossa (Red Arrow), which costs much more. Palermo and Siracusa will loose a major part of their direct connections with the North. One who leaves from Piedmont, or from Lombardy, from Calabria or from Sicily, will have to reach Rome and from there proceed with another train for their final destination. With the winter time table will also be discontinued the Bolzano –Rome night and to Palatino, the Rome –Paris night, which will restart its service in June 2012. These cuts have unleashed the ire of 700 employees of the company which manages the night service. Since 430 of them run the risk of loosing the job. Thus, they have united and protested at the Termini station. Also complaining were the passengers who will be constrained to take an airplane or spend more money. But if Trenitalia has chosen to make these cuts, is due to the progressive decline of the night passengers: -25% ;, "necessary choice" saying at the State Railways. The responsibilities ? Fs says its due to the low cost flights. But the union and the commuter associations do not believe this. They accuse the policy (too much) industrial and the strategic choices of the number one of Fs, Moretti.