Green Train, attraction in the middle

Everyone agrees that it should be enhanced, but the Green Train is a service still considered by many to be "insufficient".

Along the section between Mandas and Laconi it travels fully loaded: 50 passengers, 80 on August 15th. Sardinians, but also Italian and foreign tourists. Too bad we only leave once a week: Sundays, and not even all of them. «Sometimes the train passes through the other line and the ride skips», confirms the mayor of Mandas, Umberto Oppus: «When it travels, however, it is always full. The problem is the few races on the calendar».

"I don't see a concrete commitment to reactivate the section up to Sorgono", sighs Paolo Pisu, coordinator of the Safeguard Committee of the Green Train of Sardinia: "Nor to improve the service offered to tourists". The underlying problem? The absence of political choices on the part of the regional government: "We are at the end of the term - observes the former mayor of Laconi - and the general project promised for some time and foreseen by unanimous motions in the Regional Council does not yet exist on the little train".

The general project that has been under discussion for years concerns four sections, for a total of 438 kilometres: the longest historic and tourist railway in Europe which, according to the estimates of the former president of Arst, Chicco Porcu, could carry more than 300 thousand tourists the year.

Sonia Joy

Paola Mura Ruggiu