Slow trains like forty years ago: Cagliari-Olbia more than 4 hours, Cagliari-Sassari 3

The trains may be new but the travel times will always remain the same: three hours to go from Cagliari to Sassari and more than four if you want to go as far as Olbia. «From this point of view the service has remained stuck 40 years ago», says Arnaldo Boeddu, regional secretary of Filt CGIL, «we have improved the technology, increased safety, but to travel from one end of the island to the other we he always wants an eternity."

The scenery

Now, so to speak, the Pendolini - who don't commute here in Sardinia -, the Blues and the Swing, run on the rails, but the music has changed little compared to when the coal engines chugged along the railway. In the best case scenario, the journey time between Cagliari and Sassari is 2 hours and 59 minutes. The average speed is just over 80 kilometers per hour.

And what about the Macomer-Nuoro route, 57 kilometers of narrow gauge that cuts the island in two? To go from one station to another takes at least an hour and twenty-two minutes, the average speed is 41 kilometers per hour. And that maximum cannot exceed - it is a prescription from the security agencies - 50.

The knots

The biggest hitch is that of the level crossings. Between Nuoro and Macomer alone there are 27. Around a hundred instead on the main route between Cagliari and Sassari. At each crossroads the trains have to slow down, in some cases to a walking pace, and then resume their journey. As also happens in stations, even those where no stops are planned. Added to this are the crossings between trains in the stretch where the track is single, i.e. from San Gavino upwards.

The projects

The Sardinian railway network for several stretches is still that of the nineteenth century, but in recent years RFI, the company that manages the route, has planned and started several construction sites. Like the one that started yesterday between Chilivani and Golfo Aranci.

According to the company's forecasts, travel times should drop by 30 minutes on the Cagliari-Sassari route, 40 minutes on the Cagliari-Olbia route and 30 minutes on the Sassari-Olbia route.

Michele Ruffi