The PCP started its parliamentary days this Monday with a train journey between Pragal and Beja, calling for more investment in rail and announcing that it is planning a current debate in parliament on the matter.
At the ‘beginning’ of the PCP’s parliamentary days, which take place between this Monday and Tuesday, deputies Paula Santos and Bruno Dias traveled by train from Lisbon to Beja, as a way of witnessing the lack of accessibility in that district capital.
As there is no electrified rail line to Beja, passengers wishing to travel from Lisbon to that town in the Alentejo must change at Casa Branca station.
It was exactly what Paula Santos and Bruno Dias did as they left the train that brought them from Lisbon at around 8:40 am and headed for Évora, to join Deputy Sheriff João Dias on the train going from Casa Branca to Beja.
Shortly after boarding the train, the parliamentary leader explained that the purpose of the trip was to “address the concerns and issues affecting rail transport this Monday”.
“We believe that rail transport is of great importance in our country, it is an element of territorial cohesion, an element of course to guarantee the mobility of the population itself, but it is also a fundamental element for the animation and promotion of the active economy,” he underlined.
On the four-car, diesel railcar, the three deputies exchanged words with some of the users, who repeated their complaints throughout the nearly fifty-minute journey, pointing to stations such as Alvito, which were walled in, with weeds growing on the sidewalk and without any weather protection.
Antonio, from the civil movement “Beja deserves more,” he complained that “older people, when they get to the White House, have to transfer from Beja’s train car [para a linha] which comes from Évora and which is already electrified”.
“This creates several problems, and sometimes very long delays, with conditions at Casa Branca station not allowing people to shelter from the rain,” he complained.
Herlânder Guerreiro, in turn, complained about the successive promises made during the election campaign – whether it concerns the electrification of the railway line to Beja, or the hospital in that city – but which are later abandoned.
“On the eve of elections, everyone speaks, but the next day, in parliament, some leave the room,” he charged.
Asked by deputy Bruno Dias about the lack of staff at the ticket offices, Maria Antónia Sobral also spoke: “The only access to tickets to travel is practically through the Internet”.
“Most people only know the Internet by name, but you can almost only buy tickets through the Internet, not least because the district capital itself, which is Beja, has an employee at the counter during train hours, but not always,” regrets .
At the end of the trip, the communist parliamentary leader described the conversation with users as “of tremendous value” and enabled the PCP to be “in better conditions to intervene on the railway issue”.
Since now, Paula Santos announced that her party will request the appointment of a current debate in the Assembly of the Republic “on the trail”, to “confront the government with the solutions needed” for the country.
Among the issues she brought up from conversations with users, Paula Santos particularly highlighted “the lack of employees” and issues related to “salaries and the difficulty of finding employees at CP and IP”.
These are difficulties “that determine not only the offer itself, the timetables, but even the operation of the stations and we have had the opportunity during the journey to see some stations that were closed and others that were already inactive”, he also stressed . .
Paula Santos called for investment in rail, “whether in rolling stock or investment in the rail network itself”.
“It is fundamental, here for the Alentejo region, to make progress not only towards the modernization and electrification of the line to Beja, the section of Beja and Ourique and the reopening to passenger traffic between Beja and Funcheira”, he stressed.
The PCP’s parliamentary days began this Monday in Beja and lasted for two days, focusing on labour, social and cultural rights, with initiatives on railways, health, agricultural production or infrastructure.
Source: DN
