High-speed lines will double traffic capacity: Italy's developing mixed-traffic high-speed network is central to the objective to transform the national railway into a high-capacity network - Italy: High Speed

International Railway Journal, Dec, 2002 by Mike Knutton

THE 253.6km Rome-Florence Direttissima was Europe's first high-speed line. The first section opened in 1978, but the line was not finally completed until 1991. Italy fell a long way behind countries such as France and Germany in constructing a high-speed network largely because of the fickleness of government funding allocations. But today Italy is bouncing back thanks to a government with a more consistent funding regime coupled with liberalisation, which has given the railways' high-speed construction company, TAV, access to money market funds.

When completed within the next 10 years, the 1200km T-shaped network will connect Turin, Milan, and Venice in an east-west direction and Milan, Bologna, Florence, Rome, and Naples in a north-south direction. Effectively, the lines will provide four instead of two tracks between all these cities.

"Its importance to the entire railway and indeed to the economy of Italy cannot be overstated since its completion will almost double the volume of rail traffic in Italy," Mr Antonio Savini Nicci, chief executive officer of TAV, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the infrastructure owner, RFI, told IRJ in Rome. "Coupled with the upgrading of major urban junctions, this will make it possible to begin redressing the modal balance within the Italian transport system, and make it efficient and environmentally compatible. The network will also be integrated into the growing European high-speed network"

The project has drawn some criticism for being behind time and over budget but, even beyond historic funding problems, TAV has had to face some unusual problems. For example, work to improve the Rome junction has been stopped since April by the discovery of a 130m-long section of an ancient Roman road.

Experts will eventually relocate the road but the cost to the railway in terms of time and money is considerable. Other archaeological finds are almost certain to throw similar spanners in the construction works.

"In some cases it has taken us a very long time to obtain permits for work to proceed, while much of the information previously gathered on the projects turned out to be far too basic. There are some hydrological and environmental problems, and there is also great complexity on some sections, Between Turin and Milan, for example, there will be about nine interfaces such as roads and streams every kilometre. On the French high-speed network there are on average only two interfaces every kilometre," Nicci explained.

For all this, Euros 28.8 billion are being invested in construction up to 2008 and openings of sections of new high-speed line will be a regular occurrence up to 2010.

The first will be the 204km Rome--Naples section, which is now 86% complete and is due to open in 2004. It will employ Level 2 of the European Train Control System (ETCS) and GSM-R. Electrification is under way and diesel trains are already operating on the line. There are difficulties on the last 8 to 10km of the approach to Naples because of archaeological finds and expropriation problems. This means that, when the high-speed line opens, trains will have to use an existing line to access the city. The line has more than 14km of interconnections with the conventional network. Once in full operation it will increase passenger and freight capacity by 52%, and provide a journey time of lb 5min between Rome and Naples, compared with lh 45min today.

Moving north, the existing Rome-Florence Direttissima is being brought up to the standards of the new lines. The Direttissima was designed for 250km/h operation and electrified at 3kV dc compared with a maximum speed of 300km/h and 25kV ac electrification on the new lines. Trials at 300km/h have already been conducted on part of the Direttissima using an ETR 500 train. The upgrading is being conducted in three phases and includes civil works to viaducts and tunnels, and modifications to track, signalling, telecommunications, and power supply.

All but 5km of the 78.4km Florence-Bologna line will be in tunnel, allowing TAY to claim that it is the longest tunnel ever made by man. The line is 61% complete and is due to open in 2007. It will more than double transport capacity in a topographically difficult area, and will link Florence and Bologna in 30 minutes, a saving of 27 minutes.

Preparatory works are taking place in the junction of Florence and it was announced in October that architects, Norman Foster & Partners, with engineers Ove Arup, had won the design competition for the new high-speed station in Florence. It will cover more than 45,000[m.sup.2]. According to the announcement: "...it involves a brilliantly designed functional unit hosted beneath a long glass covering supported by a lightweight steel framework."

The 182km Bologna--Milan section is also due to open in 2007 though at the moment it is only 18% complete. It will increase capacity by 88% and reduce the journey time by 44 minutes to 1 hour.

The 125km Milan-Turin line will link the two cities in 50 minutes when in operation compared with lh 40mm at pre sent. Work is currently taking place only on the Turmn-Novara section, which is due to open at the end of 2005 in time for the Turin Winter Olympics in 2006. Work on the Novara--Milan section will start in 2003.