Compagnia Reale delle Ferrovie Sarde

Compagnia Reale delle Ferrovie Sarde
legal form	Corporation
founding	1863
resolution	1920
Reason for dissolution	Takeover by FS
Seat	London , UK
Branch	Transport / logistics

CRFS route network
Route length:	414 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend Cagliari Decimomannu Iglesias Monteponi Oristano Campeda Tunnel (7 km) Ozieri Sassari Porto Torres Olbia Golfo Aranci

The Compagnia Reale delle Ferrovie Sarde , abbreviated CRFS ( German : Royal Society of Sardinian Railways ), was a railway company that had concessions to build and operate standard-gauge railways in Sardinia . It was founded in London on June 2, 1863 and dissolved in 1920 after being taken over by Ferrovie dello Stato (FS).

history

Railway station in Cagliari 1895

prehistory

Shortly after the unification of Italy , calls for the construction of railroads were also loud in Sardinia. Feasibility studies have been carried out and the first concrete steps towards the railway construction have been carried out by a group of British investors together with Italian entrepreneurs. Among them was Gaetano Semenza from Lombardy , who legally represented the company .

The company's first contract was signed by Semenza and Ministers Agostino Depretis , Quintino Sella and Pepoli on July 14, 1862. With him, 200,000 hectares were assigned to the company for the construction and operation of the railway. The agreement provided for the establishment of a public limited company . About 400 km of railway lines were to be built. The Cagliari - Iglesias railway line had to be completed by February 1, 1865 and the Cagliari - Oristano railway line by June 1 of the same year . For the following year, the Sassari - Porto Torres lines should open on February 1st and Ozieri - Olbia on July 1st. More routes should follow in the next six years. The government continued to guarantee a net income of 9,000 lira per kilometer. On July 17, 1862, the project was presented to the Italian Chamber of Deputies , approved by them within less than a month and passed on to the Senate . There, however, there were major discussions about the land assignment. A commission appointed by the Senate presented the results of their investigation in early December of the same year. The discussion in the plenary was sparked by the Commission's statement that the project would have economic disadvantages. Nevertheless, on December 18, the Senate approved the project with 68 votes to 30, so that the content of the contract became Law No. 1105 on January 4, 1863.

Establishment of companies and construction work

Bond of the Compagnia Reale delle Ferrovie Sarde from 1878

On June 2, 1863, the CRFS was founded. Its statutes were approved by the Italian government on October 11th of the same year.

The following year, CRFS ran into financial difficulties due to a British economic crisis. The passing of the law on the transfer of state land was also delayed. Work did not begin until the end of November 1864 at the four endpoints of the routes in Cagliari, Sassari, Oristano and Porto Torres. On March 15, 1865, the first material train from Cagliari ran the route under construction. But the following month all construction work was stopped because the company became insolvent due to the economic crisis .

Between February 22, 1866 and March 24, 1869, the company tried to get work going again with proposals for a revised law. However, these were all rejected by the government. Only the arrival of the English railway engineer Benjamin Piercy in Cagliari helped to bring the matter forward. After the state of the long-dormant work had been established and the fourth proposed amendment to the law of 1863 had been approved by CRFS shareholders, the government converted it into law. In February 1871, construction work began again.

Start of operations

First phase

Route network of the CRFS 1874

In May 1871 the first railway line in Sardinia from Cagliari to Villasor went into operation. In 1872 the first route followed in the northwest of the island from Sassari to Porto Torres . The route starting from Cagliari had meanwhile reached Oristano . Both networks were initially isolated operations without a network connection. In the same year the connection from Cagliari to Iglesias was completed. In 1874 the line from Sassari to Ozieri was opened, the Sassari – Ploaghe section being a particular challenge because of the difficult terrain. The CRFS network was about 200 km long in 1874.

Second phase

Route network of the CRFS from 1896

In 1875 and 1876 there were quarrels between neighboring communities as well as differences of opinion between the local authorities and the central government, political maneuvers and fighting in parliament over the construction of further railway lines, which plunged the CRFS into a deep crisis, so that the construction work was stopped. On December 31, 1876, the contract with the company of Gaetano Semenza had expired, so that the management and operation of the lines were taken over by the CRFS. On May 1, 1877, a fifth agreement was reached with the Italian government under the praesidium of the Agostino Depretis , signed by Giuseppe Zanardelli , Minister of Public Works . It ensured the completion of the line under the direction of Benjamin Piercy, the chief engineer of the CRFS.

In this second phase of railway construction in Sardinia, the two subnetworks were connected with the Oristano – Ozieri line, which was opened continuously on July 1, 1880.

In the 1880s, the entire network planned by the CRFS in the 1860s was finally put into operation. The last route was from Olbia to Golfo Aranci on July 1, 1883. According to statistics published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Trade, the standard gauge network of the CRFS 1896 had a length of 414 km. The company's desire to build longer routes was no longer realized.

On March 22, 1885, the construction of around 600 km of network extensions and branch lines in Sardinia was approved by law. The CRFS had already drawn up a detailed plan for this, which was drawn up in 1880 by chief engineer Piercy at the request of Alfredo Baccarini , the then Minister for Public Works. However, a change of direction by the government led to the decision to award the concessions for the planned routes by tendering, whereby the CRFS did not even receive special privileges. The contract was awarded to a consortium of Italian donors chaired by Alfredo Cottrau and the CRFS was only a small extension of the line at Iglesias, which was put into operation in 1896 as the last line built by the company.

Tabular representation

opening	route	length
May 1, 1871	Cagliari - Decimomannu - Villasor	25.5 km
September 4, 1871	Villasor - San Gavino Monreale	24.5 km
January 15, 1872	San Gavino Monreale - Oristano	44.5 km
April 6, 1872	Decimomannu - Siliqua	13.8 km
April 9, 1872	Sassari - Porto Torres	18.8 km
September 1872	Siliqua-Iglesias	24.2 km
August 1874	Sassari - Ploaghe	27.0 km
December 1874	Ploaghe - Ozieri	19.5 km
December 21, 1878	Giave - Ozieri Fraigas	26.7 km
September 1879	Cagliari train station
July 1, 1880	Oristano-Giave	84.7 km
July 1, 1880	Oschiri - Ozieri Fraigas	17.0 km
December 1, 1880	Oschiri – Monti	26.3 km
March 15, 1881	Monti-Olbia	22.2 km
May 1, 1883	Olbia – Olbia Marittima	2.4 km
July 1, 1883	Olbia - Golfo Aranci	21.2 km
Late 1884	Sassari train station
1896	Iglesias – Monteponi	6 km

Dissolution of the company and transfer to the FS

In 1905 the FS was founded on the Italian mainland. The Rete Mediterranea was thereby dissolved, its boss for the rolling stock, Stanislao Fadda , became director general of the CRFS. The company operated the route network until 1920. On July 30, 1919, the government decided to buy back all the concessions for the routes operated by the CRFS. In 1920 the CRFS was integrated into the FS.

Locomotives

(List incomplete)

model series number Construction year FS numbers Top speed Wheel alignment Discarded image 7-10 4th 1871 110.001 - 004 ? B1 circa 1925 31-40 10 1881-1883 186,001 - 010 50 km / h 0-3-0 ? 41-55 9 1900-1912 216,001 - 015 60 km / h 1'C ?

Web links

Commons : Compagnia Reale delle Ferrovie Sarde  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Efisio Costantino: Gaetano Semenza, imprenditore e sognatore "bruciato" sui binari della Sardegna . In: Sardegna Economica . No. 6 , 2004 ( images.ca.camcom.it [PDF]).
2. ↑ Francesco Ogliari: La rete sospirata. Storia dei trasporti italiani, Sardegna . tape 1: 1800-1883 . Cavallotti Editore, Milan 1978, p. 155-203 .
3. ↑ ^{a b} Jacini, Scialoja, Berti: Modificazioni alla Convenzione approvata con L. 4 gennaio 1863, n. 1105 per la costruzione delle ferrovie sarde . ( archivio.camera.it [PDF]).
4. ↑ ^{a b} Edoardo Altara: Binari a Golfo Aranci. Ferrovie e treni in Sardegna dal 1874 ad oggi . Ed .: Ermanno Albertelli. Parma 1992, ISBN 88-85909-31-0 , pp. 11-15 .
5. ↑ Efisio Costantino: Una controversa vicenda nella storia ferroviaria dell'Isola. Retrieved March 28, 2017 .