#Canceled #trains #public #toilets
What should NATO do when they are needed?
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fullscreen At Degerfors train station there are no toilets for waiting passengers. Photo: Nora Lorek/TT
How did the country of the future turn out? Sweden, once the world’s most modern, a country at the back? Europe’s sick man. The shootings are unique. But also the disintegrating railway networks and power grids that are swaying.
As I write this, a colleague at the Katalys think tank has just announced that he cannot attend our economic-political spring seminar, which is broadcast on Aftonbladet’s leader’s podcast Starta pressarna.
The train he was supposed to take to get to work is cancelled.
An ordinary Monday disaster in the small, a sunny day in April in the new, privatized Sweden.
Last Friday had My partner and I have been to something up in Karlskoga. We had been given a ride to the station in Degerfors of the nice people we met.
The train we are going to take is cancelled. Luckily, we haven’t booked a ticket yet, so a little over an hour later we’re on our way to Stockholm with the train because, after all, it’s going almost as it should.
On the way up to Värmland the same morning, the SJ staff had hoarsely boasted in the rickety loudspeaker system that they had brought a bistro. There was something about their weary yet enthusiastic tone of voice that made me suspect that people are crushed by ever-deteriorating conditions.
Two out of three toilets on the old train were out of use, as were the pair of doors we were going out through.
But this is everyday food for everyone who travels by train.
My problem at the station in Degerfors was that I really needed to go to the toilet. Not a little. Not for a while. Now!
There was a toilet. Occupied. After two minutes, a man in a bus driver’s uniform came out. He tried to pull the door shut behind him.
– May I borrow the toilet?
– Not really, but let it go quickly, said the driver and looked at the clock. My bus leaves soon and when the kiosk closed the toilet disappeared.
I got the worst of it and then he could lock me up and rush towards his bus.
An elderly man, dressed for traveling with a small bag in his pocket, asked if the toilet was free.
– Unfortunately not, I had to announce. The man looked around and then went out onto the track area and peed with his bag next to him.
That the trains should being on time is perhaps something we can possibly get in the future when NATO demands good railways in Sweden.
But that you should have an open toilet at a train station, so that people can relieve themselves and wash their hands afterwards while waiting for their canceled departures. Is that too much to ask?
An unlocked water closet can be the difference between civilization and barbarism. Maybe we can also treat ourselves to that in small towns like Degerfors.
If any party proposes it in the EU elections, it gets my vote.
