Strike Info Help Needed

Italian law requires advance notice of a strike, so there are many more warnings than actual strikes as many are cancelled. As the date approaches, watch for specifics as they often release lists of affected (or unaffected) trains.

Personally I think the talk about strikes is much to do about nothing. Besides you cannot do anything about except adjust that day. In all of our travels, close to year over the last nearly 20 years, we encounter a train strike once - in Spain. Had to use a bus that day. Even when there are strikes, some trains run. Italy is known for threatening strikes and nothing happening. Unfortunately you will not know for sure till that day, so I would not worry about it. If it happens, there will be ways of dealing with it.

At least a minimum amount of essential service is always preserved on the main lines, such as your route. Trenitalia shows the details in Italian. Remaining station personnel should know the schedule, or hotel staff can help you to interpret the news online.

The only guaranteed trains, in a Sunday strike beginning on late Saturday, are those included in this list:
http://www.trenitalia.com/cms-file/allegati/trenitalia_2014/informazioni/TAB_B_14giu-12_dic_%202015.pdf

However, as the strike was called by a minor union (ORSA), it may be that only a few train engineers go on strike and only a few trains get cancelled, if any.

Hi Kathi,
I am in a similar situation. I leave Florence for Santa Margherita Ligure on 13 Sept. I am choosing not to stress about it since I can't do anything about it. I am not going to change hotel reservations in case of a strike (and I want to see my sister off from Florence). So, once I am in Italy, I'll check to see what's happening.
If you are really stressing out about this, what about booking a bus or leaving a day earlier or later?

I land in Milan on Sept 13th and supposed to go to the Cinque Terre on a IC train from Milan to Monterosso (or Sestri Levante) and then a Regionale Train from there to Vernazza. Part of that strike page mentions trenitalia in the line above Tuscany.

A friend lands in Pisa and is taking a train from Pisa to La Spezia and then a reginonale train from La Spezia to Vernazza to meet us.

Wondering if I should look for alternate means of transportation besides the train?

Robert,

My suggestion would be to "play it by ear" when you arrive there (that's what I plan on doing). It's likely some trains will still be running and you should be able to get to Vernazza, but probably a bit later than planned.

Have a plan B. We were on Eurostar from London to Paris when striking ferry and dock workers burned truck tires outside the Chunnel and Tunnel. They successfully stopped all train traffic and road traffic. This was on a Tuesday. When they had done the same thing the previous Tuesday the next train available to stranded passengers was Friday. The earliest train available to us was Thursday. We would have missed our Paris leg of our trip. As soon as the train started going back to London & took out my iPhone and booked 4 plane tickets from London to Paris the next day. Surprisingly the plane tickets costs the same as if we had purchased them 3 months earlier. However, by the time we got back to our hotel about 4 hours later the same tickets had more than doubled in price! Furthermore, we left London on Wednesday which was good because on Thursday there was a London metro strike.

There were people on my original Eurostar train who were originally scheduled to travel by ferry but re-routed to Eurostar. We were fortunate to dodge a train strike in Italy & another in the Netherlands or Belgium.