Trains stopped from Battipaglia towards Calabria. The cause is not just any fault, it is an act of vandalism/sabotage, because someone, between San Lucido and Longobardo, on the Tirrenica line, and between Cutro and Isola di Capo Rizzuto, on the Ionian line, cut the cables of the railway network, the fiber optic and copper ones, the same cables that keep the entire infrastructure in communication. The result is an almost total block of traffic as far as Calabria is concerned, with effects that spread far beyond the regional borders. The Italian Railway Network has suspended connections on the Salerno-Paola, Catanzaro Lido-Taranto, Sibari-Paola and Cosenza-Paola lines since the early hours of the morning of Thursday 9 July. From Battipaglia to Paola, for a few hours, no train ran, in their place replacement buses were set up, organized hastily, to limit damage to passengers.
What happened, according to the first investigations
The RFI technicians, who intervened since the night, identified damage in various points of the line. Not a single isolated cut, but an action that affected both the Tyrrhenian and Ionian sides of the region, a detail that alone is enough to orient the investigations towards a voluntary act rather than a random failure. The first information circulating also speaks of a possible theft of copper and optical fiber in the San Lucido area, in the Cosentino area, and it is not the first time that disappearances of this type have caused a section of the network to go haywire. However, for now there is no confirmation on the matrix, it could be a theft carried out in an unusually extensive manner, or a demonstration action. The investigations are entrusted to the competent authorities. RFI, in a note released in the morning, spoke of “damage to the infrastructure by unknown persons” and assured the immediate intervention of technicians for the restoration. From around 8.17am traffic began to gradually resume on the affected lines, although the risk of delays, route limitations and cancellations for high-speed, intercity and regional trains remains. Real-time updates remain available on the RFI and Trenitalia Infomobility channels.
The inconveniences spread beyond Calabria
The problem, Codacons reports, does not stop at regional borders. Numerous trains heading towards the South were also canceled for passengers who had to get off in Campania, therefore without any direct connection with the affected Calabrian sections. A “chaos” that adds to the slowdowns already underway for the work to modernize the network in the Florence hub, transforming rail transport into an odyssey for thousands of travelers these days. To further complicate the day, the 23-hour strike proclaimed by Uiltrasporti for Italo’s crew personnel, scheduled for 9 and 10 July. The question of reimbursements remains open, as often happens in these cases, given that European Regulation 782/2021 exempts railway companies from the obligation to pay compensation when the delay depends on third-party behavior that the company could not foresee or avoid, including cable theft and sabotage. Anyone who has lost hours of travel due to a cable cut therefore risks having to settle for a ticket refund only, without further compensation.
