Wheel's On Fire

When talking about the train, be it the extension to Alcúdia or its history (as was the case on 14 May), it might also be appropriate to bring into the equation the safety and emergency procedures. Well, it might be - is - appropriate if the train operator and the staff were talking about them. One of the trains that runs between Sa Pobla and Palma caught fire the other day at the Verge de Lluc station coming into Palma. It didn't seem like much of an incident, so I didn't bother mentioning it, until a report appeared in "The Diario" yesterday which suggested that there are deficiencies in the emergency procedures. It could, say could, have been a more serious incident. As it was, all the 200 or so passengers were evacuated unharmed and without having inhaled anything toxic. But apparently it took ten minutes from the time the fire was detected to the fire service being notified.

"The Diario" has been kind enough to post a short video of the incident to the Daily Motion site. Here is the link - http://www.dailymotion.com/diariodemallorca/video/x9abg2_incendio-en-el-tren-de-inca_news. In the clip, someone shouts out to go, that it could explode; another, on the phone, says that they had intended to put the fire out with extinguishers, but ... . Perhaps most troublingly, workers are quoted as saying, since the incident, that "no protocol exists to deal with such situations".


More on the orchid and the finca
And of course in the aftermath of the environment ministry having made its announcement about the orchid on the Son Bosc finca (yesterday), up pops the oppostion on Muro town hall to say that the finca should be deemed as land covered by the law on the coasts and therefore protected and considered as part of the nature park (of Albufera). The reasoning behind this is that the finca, so the opposition say, forms a second line of dunes and that therefore there should be a reclassification of what constitutes - in this case - public coastal land which cannot be built on.

Oh God, on it goes, and on and on, and for all the environmental discussion and argument, we never seem to be presented with a really good case as to why the wretched course should be built.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - White Stripes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKntY8WkNYQ). Today's title - best known by? But who did it first?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)