It’s curious in these announcements how one has to listen to all kinds of information that is absolutely standard for all Intercities (first and second class, buffet, minibar, etc.) before they tell you where the thing is actually going. People stand on the platforms in rapt attention, waiting patiently for the only two pieces of information that matter: the destination and the platform. For who has any notion of the code numbers of the trains, or even their names? And since no one pays any attention to this information, but again no one complains about having to listen to it, you can only assume that these formulas have taken on a sort of liturgical function, not unlike the repetition of the names Hang Seng and Dow Jones in more or less every news bulletin, as if any of us cares what the Hang Seng had done this morning or might do tomorrow. This constant, reliable, decorous repetition perhaps transmits to the harassed passenger the sensation that, rather than simply heading home a little the worse for wear after another dull day at the workplace, he is in fact part of some grandiose, never-ending ceremony. This is not such a zany idea in the lofty temple that is Milano Centrale.
Maybe because I spoke almost no Italian when I first came to live in Italy, there are certain words I actually learned from hearing railway station announcements, words that remain forever associated in my mind with le Ferrovie dello Stato. Anziché, for example, and coincidenza. Anziché can occasionally be heard at the end of a pre-recorded announcement. They’ll read out the whole spiel of your train description, its name, number, various services and stops, and right at the end, just when you thought all was well, you’ll hear, ‘partirà da – binario – nove – anziché da – binario – tre’. Platform nine instead of platform three. What you thought was going to happen, isn’t. Routine is interrupted. The folks on platform three begin to trudge back to the concourse.
I don’t know why but I have a special affection for anziché. There is something elegant and measured about it, like a person who keeps calm in a crisis. I’m always glad to hear anziché. I repeat it to myself under my breath. And when I hear it in other circumstances I always think of changing platforms.
Coincidenza is often heard together with anziché, but this time the voice will be alive, urgent, a real person speaking into the microphone. Something is happening right now.
Coincidenza is a curious word with a number of meanings. It can mean coincidence, in the sense of two things corresponding in some way, or happening at the same time, though it’s not often used in the English way to suggest that a certain potentially significant happening was actually pure chance. For that the Italians say caso. È stato un puro caso.
When talking trains, coincidenza can be the word used for a connection. In Milan the train for Venezia waits for the train from Genova to arrive (maybe!) so that people can make their coincidenza. People love to complain about their coincidenze bestiali – nightmare connections. But the word is mostly used to announce a sudden and altogether unexpected development that requires an urgent response.
‘Coincidenza, coincidenza!’ Suddenly a young woman’s voice is speaking directly to us through the PA. She’s husky, anxious. The liturgical calm of the recorded voice is gone. ‘Coincidenza! Interregionale per Verona parte dal binario sei, anziché dal binario quattro. Il treno è in partenza. Il treno è in partenza.’ Since it’s not unheard of that they’ll announce a train as in partenza, about to depart, when in fact it’s already moving, it’s gone, the coincidenza announcement can cause panic and is often immediately followed by this warning: ‘Passengers are reminded that it is forbidden to cross the lines! It is forbidden to cross the lines.’ And in fact four or five young people have jumped down from the platforms onto the lines. They are running across. Every year one or two people will lose their lives crossing rails.
Even more ominous than anziché and coincidenza is the dreaded word soppresso. On strike days, despite the fact that maybe 80 per cent of the trains aren’t running, they nevertheless broadcast all the mechanical announcements absolutely as usual; the whole daily timetable is sung out as on any other day, with the sole difference that at the end of each train description, the simple word soppresso is tagged on, in a rather louder voice than the rest. So you might hear:
Interregionale – Quattro – nove – due – di-prima-e-seconda-classe – delle ore – otto – e – cinquantacinque per – Milano Centrale! – è – SOPPRESSO!
Cancelled.
Sometimes five or six trains will be conjured into existence, one after another by the famous mechanical voice, only to be brutally dismissed: SOPPRESSO!
It’s amusing watching the uninitiated tourist trying to get to grips with this. They hear their train announced. Treno – Intercity – Otto – uno – tre – Gabriele D’Annunzio! – they begin to congratulate them-selves – di-prima-e-seconda-classe – surely no one would announce a train so confidently if it wasn’t running – delle ore – diciassette – e – zero – cinque – they check their watches, yes, it’s on time – per Bari Centrale – this is it, kids, we’re headed south – è … and then comes that terrible word – SOPPRESSO!
Once I saw a Japanese girl checking the word in a pocket dictionary. I could see her lips mouthing the s and the p. Consternation. My dictionary gives: sopprimere: put down, repress, suppress, abolish, liquidate, eliminate. There is no doubt in my mind that whoever recorded the word did so with
