Funicolare vesuviana

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Funicolare vesuviana
Etna monorail car
Dare Etna monorail
Route length: 0.8 km
Gauge : 1880–1900: monorail
1904–1944: 1000 mm
Maximum slope : until 1906: 631 ‰
from 1908: 550  ‰

The Funicolare vesuviana was a funicular railway up Mount Vesuvius that was in operation from 1880 to 1944. She became known through the promotional song Funiculì, Funiculà , which was composed for the opening of the railway. The railway was operated as a monorail from 1880 to 1900 and as a normal funicular from 1903 to 1944.

history

Monorail

Vesuvius became a tourist attraction at the end of the 19th century, but the ascent to the crater rim was arduous and arduous. The Hungarian entrepreneur Ernesto Emanuele Oblieght, together with engineers, was looking for a way to build a railway on Mount Vesuvius. The solution was finally found in the construction of a monorail to be operated as a funicular, which opened on June 10, 1880. The two railroad cars were called Etna ' Etna ' and Vesuvio ' Vesuv ' and could only hold eight people. The drive up the mountain took 10 minutes.

The railway was initially operated by the Oblieght company, but after a few years it was transferred to the Société Anonyme du Chemin de Fer Funiculaire du Vèsuve . This company became insolvent due to missing passengers and had to be sold to the British travel agency Thomas Cook and Son in November 1888 . The monorail was destroyed by fire in 1900.

Funicular

In September 1903, Thomas Cook opened the Ferrovia Elettrica del Vesuvio - a rack railway that connected the valley station of the funicular with Pugliano on the Ferrovia Circumvesuviana . For the larger number of passengers, a new single-track funicular was built with a turnout in the middle, the carriages of which ran on two rails as usual. The railway opened in 1904 and was in operation until the eruption of Vesuvius in 1904. The railway was rebuilt and put into operation again in 1909. In March 1911, the mountain station of the railway was destroyed because part of the crater rim collapsed. The railway stayed in operation until 1944 when it was destroyed again by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Cook decided not to invest in rebuilding the railway and sold the facility to Strade Ferrate Secondarie Meridionali , which also managed Ferrovia Circumvesuviana. The funicular was replaced by a chairlift that went into operation in July 1953.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ La Funicolare Vesuviana. P. 1 (Italian).;
  2. ^ Walter Hefti: Rail cable cars all over the world: inclined cable levels, funiculars, cable cars . Birkhäuser, Basel 1975, ISBN 3-7643-0726-9 , p. 264 (Annex No. 204.40).
  3. ↑ La Funicolare Vesuviana. P. 4 (Italian).;
  4. ↑ La Funicolare Vesuviana. P. 6 (Italian).;
  5. ↑ La Funicolare Vesuviana. P. 7 (Italian).;