Adriatic railway
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Italian. (July 2012) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
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Adriatic railway (Ancona–Lecce) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Electrification | Electrified at 3000 V DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Adriatic railway (Italian: Ferrovia Adriatica) is the railway from Ancona to Lecce that runs along the Adriatic Coast of Italy, following it almost all of the way. It is one of the main lines of the Italian rail system and links the northern cities with the most important productive areas of central and southern Italy.
The railway was built by the Società per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali (Italian: Company for the Southern Railways, SFM), between 1863 and 1872. In 1906, management of the line was taken over by Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane. In 1933, the southernmost Lecce-Otranto segment of the line was turned over to the Ferrovie del Sud Est, which has maintained it to the present day.
History
Shortly after the
In November 1861 the Milan–Bologna railway line began operation, with the connection of the Milan-Piacenza line to the Piacenza-Bologna via a bridge – initially of wood but later replaced by an iron structure – across the river Po. This allowed trains from Turin and France to travel directly to the Adriatic coast along the Ancona-Bologna line, which itself had been built in November 1861 by the SFR, in what was then the Papal States.
The construction of an Adriatic line had long been desired, but had never come to pass: mainly because of the difficulty in reconciling the needs of the two countries – the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies – through whose territories the line would pass. The constitution of the kingdom of Italy in 1860 brought a resolution to this dilemma, and, as entrepreneurs in Piedmont and Lombardy desired access to Adriatic ports for closer and easier trade with Asia through the Suez Canal, construction would proceed rapidly following unification.
As early as May 1861, a detailed and complex feasibility study was presented to the Chamber of Deputies for new railways in
The new Adriatic Railway allowed, for the first time, relatively rapid travel between the south and the north-central regions of Italy. In 1866, in fact, there were no railways on the Tyrrhenian coast south of
The line was built in record time using the easiest and least demanding engineering methods (tunnels and viaducts), often near the sea. Weather was a significant cause of work interruptions, due to the heavy storms that frequently batter the Adriatic coast.
21st century: Double track
The line was reoriented in 2004, with double tracking, for the stretch from Lesina to Apricena (saving about 2.5 km), while at the end of 2005, the railway between Ortona and Vasto Casalbordino and between the Port of Vasto and Vasto / San Salvo were also realigned; for the dual purpose of eliminating the multiple curves in the old section, and reducing the danger posed by storm surges and coastal erosion.
Between 2002 and 2006 the track between Brindisi and Lecce was doubled, followed by the segment between
The only stretch of the Adriatic line that remains single track is from Termoli to Lesina, which is the bottleneck of the line.
Features
A notable aspect of the Adriatic line is the almost total absence of tunnels, with the exception of the Pescara-Vasto segment, where there are seven, including three with a length greater than 5000 m. The railway is almost entirely
.Developments
In 2023, Rete Ferroviaria Italiana has estimated the cost of a new Bologna-Ancona-Pescara-Foggia-Bari high-speed line, with trains travelling at up to 300 kilometres per hour, at between EUR 40 and 50 billion. By contrast, the cost of speeding up the existing line, with trains travelling up to 200 kilometres per hour, amounts to EUR 5 billion.[9]
See also
- List of railway lines in Italy
- History of railways in Italy
References
Footnotes
- ^ Oltre Santo Spirito. In: ″I Treni″ Nr. 144 (January 1994), p. 6–7.
- ^ Impianti FS. In: ″I Treni Oggi″ Nr. 131 (November 1992), p. 6.
- ^ Railway Atlas 2017, pp. 55, 61, 66, 72, 73, 79–81, 86, 87, 92.
- ^ Annali Universali di Statistica by Giuseppe Sacchi, Vol. CXLV, prima. Milano series, 1 st quarter 1861
- ^ Ernesto Petrucci The '48 and the railway question in the Papal States on page 19, History and Future 1/2002
- ^ Gian Guido Turchi, 150 di ferrovia in Italia, in iTreni 97, Editrice ETR, Salò,1989
- ^ La Prima Legislatura del regno d'Italia, Leopoldo Galeotti. Florence, Le Monnier, 1865
- ^ Stefano Maggi, Tra pubblico e privato. La gestione delle ferrovie nell'800 e primo '900, in Tutto Treno & Storia 22, pp. 22, 23. Duegi Editrice, Albignasego, 2002
- ^ "Alta velocità Adriatica, Rfi valuta l'ipotesi: Strisciuglio apre a una nuova rete" (in Italian). 15 December 2023. Archived from the original on 15 December 2023.
Sources
- Tuzza, Alessandro, ed. (1927). "Prospetto cronologico dei tratti di ferrovia aperti all'esercizio dal 1839 al 31 dicembre 1926" (in Italian). Ufficio Centrale di Statistica delle Ferrovie dello Stato/Trenidicarta.it. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
- Atlante ferroviario d'Italia e Slovenia [Railway atlas of Italy and Slovenia]. Schweers + Wall. 2010. ISBN 978-3-89494-129-1.
- RFI, ed. (December 2003). Fascicolo Linea 103 (Ancona–Pescara) (in Italian). Rete Ferroviaria Italiana.
- RFI, ed. (December 2003). Fascicolo Linea 104 (Pescara–Termoli) (in Italian). Rete Ferroviaria Italiana.
- RFI, ed. (December 2003). Fascicolo Linea 132 (Termoli–Bari) (in Italian). Rete Ferroviaria Italiana.
- RFI, ed. (December 2003). Fascicolo Linea 133 (Bari–Lecce) (in Italian). Rete Ferroviaria Italiana.