Thursday, June 23, 2016

Alas, another train strike: from 9 PM today, 23 June, for 24 hours

There is lots of great stuff happening in Milan...it's just that I'm hoppin' with work, so only have time to pass you bad news ... yet another national and local TRAIN strike. If you're not taking a train, you're good to go.

If you are taking a train, you'll be pretty much stuck from 9 PM, today, until one minute before 9 P.M., tomorrow. If you're in a rush, ask about the "pullman," the city-to-city busses. In fact, they sometimes are more convenient than the trains (from Milan to Siena, for example).

If that's all that's worrying you, you can skip the rest of this message...and I wish you good travelling.

If you want to stay updated about potential strikes of all kinds in Italy, ... ...More...

...and if you can read a bit of Italian, go to the official Ministry of Infrastructure "strikes" page by clicking here.

Even if you can't read Italian, here are a few hints and words that will help you.

First of all, when writing the date, Italians put the DAY before the MONTH: 23-06-2016. (It's easy to spot when the day number is higher than 12, but remember it when we're in the first couple of weeks of the month.) The web page has the STARTING date in the far left hand column. The END date is in the second to the left column.

Second, you'll need to look at the "sector" (settore) in the fourth from the left column. SECTORS: general (generale), plane (aereo), busses/trams/metro (trasporto pubblico locale), trains (ferroviario), boats (marittimo), cargo (trasporto merci), helicopters (elicotteri), taxi (taxi), roads--probably for the toll ones (circolazione e sicurezza stradale), cross-sector (intersettoriale) and finally Ncc (apparently: noleggio con conducente = car rental with a driver).

Third, you'll need to look at the "category" (categoria) in the middle column, as this is where you'll be able to see, for example, if the place YOU are interested in is involved (for example, if you scan the column entries, you'll see city and / or region names).

Fourth, the "modality" (modalità) column fourth from the right is where you'll see the times. Italy regulates itself on the 24-hour clock. (13:00 is 1 P.M., 14:00 is 2 P.M., etc. Once you get used to it, it's great.)

Finally, the "relevance" (rilevanza) column third from the right is where you'll see whether it's national (nazionale) or local (locale).

Unless you're versed in which union (sindacato) covers which field, that info in the third column from the left won't be helpful.


If you get brave, you can click on the two blue filter buttons in the upper left, and try to sort the news out by relevance (rilevanza) or sector (settore).


At the time of this writing, the RSS feed link wasn't working. (I've dropped them a line...although a lot of good that will probably do....).


Hope this is helpful! Bookmark it, so you have the info at hand for the next time...gotta run! Bye!

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