Matteo Salvini’s great revolution: stopping the trains
Like the Minister of Transport, Matteo Salvini, I belong to the generation that played with electric trains. We were divided by social class: the expensive Märklin models, the highly sought after Rivarossi and the proletarian Lima floor models, like mine. I thought about this when a few days ago, in the midst of the Salvini era, we received the news of the fault that paralyzed the Central station and half of Italy in Milan. Yet another high-speed knockout. With the repetition of new interruptions on Roma-Napoli earlier this week. And the kamikaze hypothesis for Italy’s image, in the midst of the Jubilee and on the eve of the Milan-Cortina Olympics: reducing trains to hide the chaos. Thus leaving thousands of people directly on the ground.
When we made the house train run there was always the one among our friends who would say: “Let’s make it go faster”. And, crash, the carriages derailed. Or he climbed over the tracks and, pom, with a kick he inadvertently undermined the station of Lerino, an innocent Venetian town whose name was depicted on all the toy facades.
Money for maintenance on the bridge over the Strait
Matteo Salvini has no direct responsibility for what is happening on the tracks throughout Italy: daily delays, stopped trains, enraged travellers. We see the numbers below. But perhaps he has an indirect responsibility. First because he is the Minister of Transport from 2022: therefore he should make transport work. And then because it is effectively taking away billions of resources from the Italian areas that produce the most, in terms of gross domestic product per inhabitant. Money destined for the last two regions at the bottom of the GDP ranking: Sicily and Calabria, to be united through the famous and expensive bridge over the Strait of Messina (in the photo below, the situation in the Central station in Milan on 26 November 2024).
A state’s resources are limited by definition. And after the Superbonus comedy we know this well. So if I invest billions in the 3.6 kilometers that separate the two least profitable regions of our South, something has to be removed almost everywhere. In other words, to connect the 6 million and 635 thousand inhabitants of Sicily and Calabria, the government, at Salvini’s request, is asking the other 52 million Italians to be patient, not leave, stay on the ground: because in the meantime the necessary money for all ordinary and extraordinary maintenance. A Northern League on the contrary, in short, compared to its origins. So much so that today it happens that one can remain imprisoned for hours on trains. Or, as happened in Milan Centrale on Saturday 11 January, of not even being able to go up there. With Trenitalia’s warning that seems like a joke: “Avoid traveling by train”.
Absurd: with 60 minutes even the delay is “punctual”
Giulio Andreotti, a subtle joke teller who served numerous governments, said that there are two kinds of madmen: “Those who feel like Napoleon and those who believe they can restore the State Railways”. Instead, it was enough to put a stop to the greed of the politics of that era to have railways among the first in Europe, if we exclude commuter transport in many cities. High speed, in fact. Frecciarossa. Italian. 300km/h rails. Until the two-year period 2022-2023 when railway progress began to slow down. At least in terms of punctuality (in the graph below the delays during the days of the week – source “Other speed”).
According to statistics published by Trenitalia, medium and long-distance trains with a delay of more than 5 minutes already at departure have increased from 10.3 to 10.9 percent in twelve months: one in every ten Frecciarossa or Frecciabianca trains. Thousands of passengers involved. But the very concept of punctuality in Trenitalia’s report is very elastic: 97.9 percent of trains in 2023 (latest data available) arrived with a delay of less than 60 minutes. Practically within the hour the train is calculated among those on time. What’s the point of putting numbers like this? Here it is: only trains with delays of more than 60 minutes are indicated separately, thus reducing their percentages to telephone prefixes.
The crazy idea of letting the Arrows leave early
The public railway company warns that its annual report “excludes delays due to exceptional events”. But is the blockade of an airport that paralyzes the entire Italian railway considered among ordinary or exceptional events? However, the general worsening can also be felt in the average delay of each Freccia: in one year it has gone from 8.2 to 8.7 minutes. It doesn’t seem like much, but for thousands of trains that run on time, just as many arrive too late. Who knows how the bizarre idea of starting a train 50 minutes early will be calculated in the 2024 report, to be published in the next few weeks: because only in this way could it arrive on time. It happened on November 8 at the Frecciargento Rome-Genoa. Departing at 4.20pm. He left Termini at 3.30pm. Imagine the joy of the passengers who missed it, despite arriving at the station on time.
Bridge over the Strait: shortcuts as for the Morandi bridge – by Fabrizio Gatti
Italo’s annual report doesn’t help. The private competing company can afford to blame its delays on other companies (14.5%), external causes (25%) and the State Railways (50%). A new report published on 8 January 2025 by Radicali Europei, which however is a political group opposing the current government of Giorgia Meloni, calculates that in the last three months 72% of the Frecce arrived late. The 22,865 trains monitored have in fact accumulated a total of 4641 hours: a delay equivalent to almost six and a half months.
Kamikaze hypothesis: cutting trains instead of making them work
The effort to allow an ever-increasing number of trains to run must be acknowledged to the Italian railway networks, the public management company. A quantity which, however, reduces the time available to carry out maintenance. An acceleration of work that has contributed to serious accidents, such as the fatal collision of five workers in Brandizzo, in the province of Turin on 30 August 2023. And which just as often exposes passengers to the risk of breakdowns.
Bridge over the Strait: the document that demolishes the project – by Fabrizio Gatti
I try to look for a comment from Minister Salvini on his social pages with millions of followers. Maybe a few lines of apology and understanding for the Italians left stranded. Here’s what I read: “Acquitted for stopping mass immigration.” “Fight against illegal immigration and tax cuts, Christian roots and return to peace”. And so on. Matteo Salvini is the Prime Minister of Transport who does not like to deal with transport. But, if the kamikaze hypothesis of reducing trains passes, he will also be the prime minister after two decades capable of worsening the Italian railways. A bit like my careless friend who stumbled on the Lérins station.
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