Culture Shock:  An Americans' Guide to Getting Around (and Getting Along) in Italy

The on-time performance record for the international, inter-city, and local railroads is quite admirable.  The ride is fast, smooth and virtually silent.  Fleets of mostly electric locomotives pull single-level coaches.  There are very few grade crossings, even in the rural areas; it seems that most of the tracks throughout the country are at an elevated grade. 

But some of the local customs are quite different from ours. 

Italian rail travel involves many different fares and types of tickets.  Besides the basic one-way or round-trip tickets, there are rail-passes good for a certain number of days, months or kilometers.  There is also first or second class, reserved seat or not reserved, compartment or sleeper, smoking or non-smoking.  I never had a problem buying tickets at the window; the agents were understanding and forgiving of my limited language skills.  I have also bought tickets through the station’s electronic vendors.  Trenitalia allows travelers to buy tickets over the internet and pick them up at multilingual electronic kiosks in several big-city stations.  Note: No matter how tickets are purchased, travelers must cancel them before boarding or be subject to much unpleasantness involving fines and possible confinement. 

Chicago's Metra train crews regularly make on-board announcements.  But in Italy, on-board train announcements are a rarity.  The only announcements I ever heard on inter-city or commuter trains are to have the tickets ready for inspection, and that the snack trolley is about to make its rounds.  Few announcements are repeated in English. 

Since there are no announced station stops (and there is no pocket timetable) travelers are on their own to figure out when their stops are coming up.  For example, you know that your train is due to arrive in Assisi at 2:15, BUT if there’s a delay, you need to keep your eyes on the blue station signs to make sure you don’t miss your stop.  (Of course, this is made difficult by the fact that many of the station signs are painted over by vandals, and are hard to read.  Graffiti seems to be a problem at most of the railroad facilities.) 

Doors are electric-powered and operated by the passengers.  On most inter-city and local coaches there is no obvious emergency window exit.   However, there is a small, pointy hammer in each coach mounted near one of the windows, apparently as an emergency exit.  (American railroad practices and procedures regarding emergency exits were changed following a collision with trapped passengers; I don’t sleep much on the trains.)

When riding Italian trains, I compare the service with ours.  For example, it’s obvious from the condition of the floor and windows that the coaches are not attended to by the Metra Coach Cleaners.  I doubt that some of the coaches I rode were cleaned for weeks.  Carpeting on the premier Eurostar trains is not vacuumed often.  And vandalism and graffiti inside the coaches don’t get dealt with promptly; sometimes it’s several layers deep.   

Even planned service interruptions occur without warning to passengers.  We arrived at the Santa Maria Novella station in Florence early on a sunny morning only to find that the railroad had completely stopped service so crews could maintain the tracks leading to our destination.  Earlier on that trip, we descended into the Rome subway to find out that our line had shut down for routine maintenance.  In neither case was any sign posted, in English nor Italian.  Also, since the locals were also surprised and annoyed with these discoveries as well, so it wasn’t just the tourists who were confused.  The Ferrovie doesn’t seem to respond to disruptions like Chicago's Metra does, with people directing the crowds and answering questions.  Besides not issuing warnings, they had few personnel available to help us figure things out.  We were on our own.