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Railway accident in Florence

Tonight a freight train derailed while crossing the Firenze Castello station, just north of Rifredi. Actually only a single car derailed, a covered hopper, crashing into a beam supporting the railway electrical lines. Six tracks (Firenze-Bologna high speed, Firenze-Bologna low speed, Firenze-Pistoia) were blocked. No casualties but the main south-north line came to a standstill; an IC train just north the accident had to wait 10 hours to be rescued, while most of the north-south and vv. trains were cancelled or several hours delayed. Only in the early afternoon the high speed line could be reopened.

This is nothing tragic, but it is a good explanation of a recurrent topic in this area, that you should sleep your last night in the city where your flight departs from. The hopper probably derailed in one of the most inconvenient places all over central Italy, but such accidents could happen; nobody gets hurt but everybody gets delayed.

Posted by
16133 posts

The delay lasted only a day. Everything seems to be back to normal since.

However the advice to always sleep on the last night before the flight in the city where the flight departs from is always a good piece of advice.

Posted by
34010 posts

does show that anything can happen, and the wisdom of not putting important long distance transport into jeopardy