Missing Mussolini

Trains not on time? Sue:

A commuter who says that repeated delays on the Italian rail network are making his life a misery is planning to sue the train company for allegedly causing him "existential damage".

Mauro Brunetti, a teacher who travels by rail every day to his job in a school in Savona, says he is so exasperated by the constant uncertainty of whether his train will arrive on time that he sometimes wonders if his life has any value or meaning.

The failings of local train services have been making his life impossible and affecting his sense of self, he said.

....The legal challenge comes as hundreds of thousands of Italians are having to get used to new train times introduced by Trenitalia. The annual adjustment of the timetable, in which some trains are cancelled or their arrival and departure times are altered, always causes problems for commuters.

One recent example involved a train to Florence, which was first posted as 25 minutes late, then flashed up as 10 minutes late, then went back to 20 minutes late. The train actually arrived on time.