The Spanish national railway, Renfe forgot to send a train to pick up 24 kids between the ages of two and three – the parents were not impressed.
For the last ten years, the infant school Belén, which is situated in the provincial capital of Granada, has been running what they call, Clases de Tren – the idea is that the kids get to know this form of transport and have an adventure at the same time. And this was the case on that particular day. A train had taken them from Granada railway station to Riofrio. The kids were to spend a few hours there and then be picked up by the same train at 15.15h… but it wasn’t to be
It wasn’t to be, because the train appeared, but just kept on going, leaving children, teachers and parents (31 adults), abandoned on the small rural train platform. And there they remained for the next three hours. Now, if you can imagine being stuck on a train platform, in the middle of nowhere, with 24 toddlers with no drinks or food, you can appreciate that it was not fun.
The rural railway stop is a request one, meaning that you have to request the train to pick you up or drop off before hand. Apart from a modest and crumbling platform, there is only a shelter, similar to a bus shelter.
When the teacher managed to get through to the main train station, they at first insisted that the pickup-time was 18.20h but as the teacher irritatedly pointed out, their tickets quite clearly indicated 15.15h. After a pause and a discussion in the background, the railway clerk admitted that it was their error, but there was no alternative until the 18.20h train arrived.
Trouble was that some parents had to be back at work by five, so calls to relatives were made to come and pick them up, but the bulk of the stranded and disappointed excursionists had to wait those three extra hours.
Irony would have it that the whole concept behind these yearly days out, funded by the Fundación Pública Granada Educa, is for kids to discover what fun travelling on a train is…
(News: Riofrio, Poniente de Granada, Andalucia)