Castelvetrano – San Carlo – Burgio railway line

Castelvetrano – San Carlo – Burgio
Route length:	80.1 km
Gauge :	950 mm ( Italian meter gauge )
Maximum slope :	30  ‰
Operating points and routes
Legend 80.1 Burgio 265  m slm Viaduct with 13 openings over the Sosio Galleria Tuppe (487 m) 73.4 San Carlo 246  m slm to Palermo until 1959 64.1 San Giacomo di Sicilia 406  m slm 54.8 Sambuca di Sicilia 295  m slm 48.0 Santa Margherita di Belice 235  m slm 40.3 Belice 136  m slm Viaduct with 6 openings over the Belice 35.9 Cusumano 170  m slm 28.6 Salaparuta - Poggioreale 359  m slm 25.5 Gibellina 350  m slm 18.8 Rampinzeri 387  m slm 16.5 Santa Ninfa 336  m slm to Salemi until 1954 10.8 Partanna 358  m slm Modione Autostrada A29 - Europastraße 90 from Palermo 0 Castelvetrano 176  m slm to Trapani / to Porto Empedocle until 1986

The railway line Castelvetrano – San Carlo – Burgio ( Italian Ferrovia Castelvetrano – San Carlo – Burgio ) was a 80.1 km long narrow-gauge line in Sicily , which was operated by the FS . It connected Castelvetrano with Burgio and established a connection to the narrow-gauge line from Palermo in San Carlo . In Salaparuta , the only partially built narrow-gauge line from Palermo to Salaparuta should have been connected.

The line with a gauge of 950 mm ( Italian meter gauge ) was put into operation in stages between 1910 and 1931. In 1959 operations on the Salaparuta – San Carlo section, and in 1968 on the Castelvetrano – Salaparuta section, ceased.

history

planning

The planning of the Sicilian narrow-gauge network envisaged a ring route that would have connected the upper Valle del Belice with the coast. It should lead from Castelvetrano via San Carlo , Burgio , Sant'Anna and Magazzolo to Sciacca on the coast and reach Castelvetrano again via Menfi . The track would also have included a longer gear section .

Except for the Burgio – Magazzolo section, the ring route was completed. It was formed by the Castelvetrano-San Carlo-Burgio lines and the Castelvetrano-Magazzolo section of the Castelvetrano-Porto Empedocle line . The missing piece was no longer built, as it turned out that the narrow-gauge railways were only partially up to their tasks and were much more expensive to operate than assumed at the planning stage.

The route of the Castelvetrano-San Carlo-Burgio line was changed from the original plans before construction began. On the one hand, it was supposed to lead via San Carlo so that the connection to the route to Palermo could be established there; on the other hand, it was changed to avoid the rack section and thus save operating costs later. Further changes were necessary in order to bypass unstable slopes and open up Salaparuta, where the Palermo – Salaparuta line should have been connected, which, however, was never completed.

construction

The route was first built from Castelvetrano. The first section to Partanna was opened in 1910 together with the line from Castelvetrano to Selinunte . This route was extended in stages until Salaparuta was reached in 1922. The remainder of the route was built from San Carlo until the entire route was in operation in 1931.

business

The need for the railroad was already evident when the first section from Castelvetrano to Partanna was opened, where four pairs of trains ran daily from the start. From today's perspective, this appears to be little traffic, but it was at least twice as much as on most other narrow-gauge routes. The trains were run by class 20 tank locomotives, later called R401 . They came from Berliner Maschinenbau AG in Germany, better known as L. Schwartzkopff, Berlin. Its four rigid coupled axles were unsuitable for the track's superstructure, so that locomotives derailed even before operations began. They were therefore withdrawn from the route after the R301 series locomotives had been delivered and sent to Cyrenaica , Libya , which had only recently been conquered by Italy .

From then on, all transport services were provided by the locomotives of the R301 series and the R302 derived from it . An exception was the diesel railcar with 45 seats , which was used for a few years from 1928 . The vehicle was built by the FS workshops in Florence and had a 150 hp MAN engine . It was designated RNE 8501 from 1929.

From 1950 the diesel railcars RALn 60 built by Fiat were used, which could significantly shorten travel times and offer better comfort compared to the existing passenger coaches. They also ran direct trains from Castelvetrano to Palermo via Corleone. Although the railcars were very successful and the number of travelers increased, no expansion of the railway line was sought. From the 1960s onwards, steam trains were no longer used for passenger transport.

Shutdown

After the Second World War, individual traffic and goods transport by road increased, so that rail traffic fell sharply. Therefore, on January 31, 1959, the last train ran between Burgio and Salaparuta. The rest of the route remained in operation, as the diesel multiple units were an attractive option for the densely populated settlements along the route.

On the night of January 14-15, 1968, the severe earthquake in Belice caused damage to settlements along the route. 370 people died, Poggioreale and Salaparuta at the end of the line were completely destroyed, the route and engineering structures were damaged, so that operations between Castelvetrano and Salaparuta could no longer be started on January 15th. In the following years no repairs were carried out on the line and on January 15, 1972, it was officially closed.

Dates of opening and closing

The route sections were opened or closed on the following dates:

opening	Shutdown	section
June 20, 1910	15th January 1968	Castelvetrano – Partanna
March 28, 1914	15th January 1968	Partanna-Santa Ninfa
February 28, 1917	15th January 1968	Santa Ninfa-Gibellina
July 20, 1922	15th January 1968	Gibellina – Salaparuta
February 28, 1928	January 31, 1959	San Carlo – Santa Margherita
1931	January 31, 1959	Santa Margherita – Salaparuta
1931	January 31, 1959	San Carlo – Burgio

Route description

The line began at Castelvetrano station on the standard-gauge line Palermo – Trapani , which is also the starting point for the narrow-gauge line to Porto Empedocle . After leaving Castelvetrano, the ascent to Partanna , 200 meters higher, began , the route winding up the slope like a serpentine to reach the town on the ridge between the Modione valley and that of the Belice . Then the route led back down into the valley and passed through extensive olive groves and vineyards to Santa Ninfa . In the remote from the city railway station which operated from 1931 to 1954, almost ten kilometer long chain branch line to Salemi from - the only finished piece of a track that originally up to Trapani should lead could.

From Santa Ninfa the Castelvetrano – San Carlo – Burgio route continued with various gradients to Gibellina and Salaparuta . Then she crossed the Belice and followed the Strada Statale 624 Palermo-Sciacca to the train station of Santa Margherita di Belice , which was some distance from the city. From here the route moves away from the Strada Statale and led via Sambuca di Sicilia and San Giacomo di Sicilia to San Carlo , where the route branched off to Palermo. After San Carlo the route crosses the Sosio river with a viaduct and reaches Burgio through a 487 m long tunnel .

The railway was constructed with 27 kg / m rails , which were fastened to wooden sleepers laid at a distance of 82 cm . This cost-effective design only allowed low speeds: the steam locomotives could run at 30 km / h, the railcars at 45 km / h. The maximum gradient was 30 ‰.

The train journeys were regulated by a dispatcher responsible for the entire route . Only collectors were employed at the stations , who were responsible for cleaning work and for selling tickets , but who had no competence in relation to train journeys. Permission to travel by train was given directly by the dispatcher to the engine or train driver , who had notified him by telephone that the train was ready to run. There were no signals along the route except in Castelvetrano and at the junctions in San Carlo and Santa Ninfa.

vehicles

The locomotives were provided by the railway depots in Castelvetrano and Palermo Sant'Erasmo . This housed the steam locomotives of the series R301 , R302 and R402 , later also the railcars of the series RALn 60, which were used on the Castelvetrano – San Carlo – Burgio route.

literature

• Nico Molino: La rete FS a scartamento ridotto della Sicilia (=  Linee ferroviarie . Volume 3 ). Elledi, Turin 1985, ISBN 88-7649-037-X .
• Antonio Federici: Lo scartamento ridotto in Italia. La storia, i treni, le linee . In: Tutto Treno. Tema . No. 14 , 1999, ISSN  1124-4232 , p. 4-82 .

Web links

• La linea Castelvetrano - San Carlo. In: Treno Doc. Associazione di Cultura ed Attivita 'Ferroviaria, accessed August 18, 2014 (Italian). 
• La linea Palermo - Corleone. In: Treno Doc. Associazione di Cultura ed Attivita 'Ferroviaria, accessed August 18, 2014 (Italian). 
• Roberto Rovelli: Ferrovia Palermo S. Erasmo - S. Carlo - Burgio. In: Ferrovie Abbandonate. Retrieved August 18, 2014 (Italian, with map). 
• Roberto Rovelli: Ferrovia S. Carlo - S. Ninfa - Castelvetrano. In: Ferrovie Abbandonate. Retrieved August 18, 2014 (Italian, with map). 
• Ricostruzione del tracciato della ferrovia Palermo-Corleone-Burgio.Parte undicesima: da San Carlo a Burgio. July 11, 2012, retrieved August 18, 2014 (Italian, with pictures of the remains). 

Commons : Castelvetrano – Burgio railway  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Railway Atlas of Italy and Slovenia . = Atlante ferroviario d'Italia e Slovenia. Schweers + Wall, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-89494-129-1 .