Railway Line

The Venosta Valley line (Merano - Malles) started out as a standard gauge railway. Covering some 59.8 km, it travels uphill over three plateaus to approximately 700 metres above sea level. In order to keep building costs within reasonable limits, some sections of the line were built with a gradient up to 29 per thousand and an operating radius of just 200 metres. The route is particularly demanding, particularly in the first section from Merano uphill towards the Tel through Marlengo,. In order to negotiate the considerable vertical rise from Merano to the Tel, at the entrance to the Venosta Valley, the tracks were extended considerably, reaching Marlengo: This required three new tunnels (Marlengo spiralling tunnel, Monte Giuseppe, and Tel), as well as an artificial tunnel section. This section proved particularly challenging from a geological point of view: extensive consolidation work was required inside the Monte Giuseppe tunnel. When it was re-opened in 2005, the railway line had undergone a full overhaul, retaining only the route, tunnels and bridges of its previous incarnation. Rails, sleepers, clips, safety equipment, traffic control and rolling are nothing less than state-of-the-art. Rails, sleepers, clips were fully replaced with a new track-bed, concrete sleepers. UNI 50 rails and continuous welded rail were also installed.  For the very first time in Italy Y-shaped sleepers were installed to accommodate the use of continuous welded rail in limited operating radii. This new generation of sleepers is capable of withstanding any lateral movement in the track position, reducing the amount of maintenance work required.
If the specific vehicle is not available, a ballast tamping machine can be used. Thanks to this solution, the amount of admissible weight per axle increased to 22.5 tonnes, allowing freight trains to travel on the line. Significant reductions in engine noise were also achieved. Switches were made using 60 UNI-type rail weighing 60kg/m, allowing rolling stock to travel at 60km/h.
From a technological standpoint, the track-bed is very sophisticated. Speeds in most bends reach70 km/h, and can be brought up to 100km/h if the track is straight and sufficiently flat (typically, straight, flat sections of track connect the various steeper sections). In some sections, the infrastructure could also allow speeds up to 120km/h.
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