The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: May 15, 2011

Official News page 5


REAL LIFE NEWS: NOW THAT'S HOW TO PROTEST ABOUT THE RAILWAYS!

by Hazed

Here in the UK, everyone agrees that our train service is rubbish - overcrowded, unreliable, and expensive. But being British our response is to go "tut" and grumble a bit.

Not so in Argentina. When passengers got cross about delays to their journeys, they set fire to three trains.

The problems started during the Monday rush hour a few weeks ago. Suburban office workers who were starting their daily commute to work found themselves held up because a derailed train had caused severe delays along the busy rail link into the capital, Buenos Aires.

The stranded passengers were so angry they set fire to at least eight carriages at three different stations along the railway line. At one of the stations, the driver and a ticket inspector were forced off the train by angry travellers. (Although forcing the driver to get off is probably not going to help get the train moving again...)

Ticket offices were ransacked and vending machines wrecked. Obviously a protest against the foul coffee!

When firefighters arrived to put out the fires, they were pelted by stones flung by the angry passengers.

The train company does not think this was a genuine spontaneous eruption of anger by disgruntled passengers, but something more organized. Spokesman Gustavo Gago said he though it was a deliberate act of industrial sabotage. "The near-simultaneous nature of the fires was striking," he said. "The fact that security cameras were damaged at all three stations makes one think it was something organized and intentional." That may be true but it wouldn't have happened if the trains had been on time.

Police later arrested three people who had stolen the ticket machines during the unrest.

Wow. If the passengers rioted every time there was a delay on the English railways, there'd be no trains left unburnt!

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13262090


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