Waiting rooms in stations disappeared to make room for lounges

History repeats itself: free services disappear, replaced by paid services, those not everyone can afford. And so waiting rooms have gone the way of benches, disappearing everywhere, in urban areas as well as near public parks, even to make room for "wild tables." But in the case of train station waiting rooms, the disappearance is even more serious than that of city benches , as it points to two phenomena: the transformation of stations into enormous commercial hubs, where there's no longer room for anything free, including urination, and the hateful discrimination against less wealthy travelers.

The elimination of waiting rooms, especially in large cities like Rome, Milan, Venice, Bologna, and Florence, was primarily accomplished to make room for shops, bars, and restaurants. These are all areas where shopping is rampant, and there's no place to relax without digging into your wallet. The second purpose of the now-former station waiting rooms was to transform them into the famous lounges reserved for loyalty card holders (those who spend thousands of euros a year on train tickets). These spaces, which were essentially paid for, have expanded enormously to ensure a greater level of service for premium customers. In the busiest lounges, like those in Milan and Rome, for example, a varied meal service is served throughout the day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And who doesn't have the famous "gold card" or "platinum card"? They make do. They stand somewhere, or walk to the platform (often in the cold), or pay for a drink at the bar.

Among the victims of this horrendous system are, first and foremost, commuters, already disadvantaged by the enormous delays their trains typically experience. They, who travel on regional and local trains, were among the main users of station waiting rooms. And it was easy to penalize them, given that the train lines they use are often in deficit.

The waiting room in a train station is important not out of nostalgia, but because it solves a very real problem: people have to wait in a public place that's often exposed and unpredictable . Rain, extreme heat, cold, wind: train delays make it common to have to wait 20–60 minutes (or more), and a waiting room offers a covered, seated, and protected place , especially useful for those traveling with luggage.

For many people, it's not a small thing: the elderly, men and women with disabilities, families with small children. For them, standing on a sidewalk or in a crowded lobby can be tiring or even problematic.

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