ATHENS – Riders on the capital city’s electric railway trains and Metro are advised to bring a book and some water maybe as they’ll have a long wait under a summer schedule that even has the system’s workers upset.
It can take 7.5-12.5 minutes before a railway car arrives on the line that runs from the northern suburb of Kifissia to Piraeus, depending on the time of the day, as 5-15 minutes on the vaunted Metro, conditions which have led to platforms being jammed and riders upset and taking out their frustrations on the workers, Kathimerini said.
The summer schedule began in July, coinciding with a huge influx of tourists and visitors to Athens, many on their way to other parts of the country, but who too are experiencing the waits. It wasn’t explained why the number of cars is cut down when there’s a wave of tourists.
Only the trains going to the Athens International Airport are keeping to their same schedule but that’s only every half hour and the time from the main station of Syntagma to the airport is another 40 minutes so travelers have to build in a lot of extra time for waiting.
The workers union said the wait is too long. “The result is that there are overcrowded platforms at central stations in heat wave conditions and passengers do not have enough room to board carriages,” the union said in a statement. “It is not hard to imagine that this frustration and rage is deeply felt and staff end up paying the price as they are on the receiving end.”
With Athens virtually a ghost town and the government essentially shut down for August holidays, there was no response. Many Officials won’t return until September, when the regular schedule resumes.
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Source: thenationalherald.com
