Italy that travels by rail stops just beyond Maratea, where the last Lucanian tunnel delivers the passenger to a Calabria that seems suspended in another era. Here the Frecce become darts, sometimes slower than the trains that once crossed the region as if they were the only possible thread of modernity. It takes longer by train from Praia a Mare to Paola station than to reach Rome or Milan by plane. The Italy of the rails is still stopped at the Marcellina station, the first stop in the north of the region. From there the problems begin on a battered network with convoys that cause terrible delays, stop suddenly and, often, in tunnels and everyone pretends nothing happened. Trains go back and forth, cost more and more and run less and less. For commuters, what is at stake is everyday life between work, study, medical treatments, opportunities that dissolve with missed connections and uncertain communications. Last Saturday a traveler from Cosenza arrived in Paola at 5.46pm with the Freccia Rossa from Villa San Giovanni, two minutes after the connection for Cosenza had already left towards Vaglio Lise. It is not an exception: the 6.24pm convoy, coming from the North, finds the connection having already left at 6.16pm, the 7.34pm one arrives when the venue is already far away (departed at 7.16pm). At 8.20pm the same script applies, with the 8.16pm coincidence missed due to 4 minutes of misalignment. Those who have no alternatives wait for the 9.58pm train. A system that makes punctuality a theoretical concept.
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