The
line from Firenze Maria Antonia (currently
Firenze Santa Maria Novella) was built in
1848, and was this first one to leave Firenze, since it was opened in April
1848, a couple of months before the line to Pisa
that arrived at the station Leopolda in june of
the same year, its Prato terminal was at porta al
Serraglio and both station represented a first in Italian panorama
about railway stations.
In fact both terminals were build inside the walls
of the city, in the case of Prato demolishing a part of them to build the
station on top, when at that time, in Italy, all railways (and so the station)
were left outside the walls of the city.
Also the station of Prato had an approach completely
different than the other, since had the ticket office at ground ant the
platform on 1st floor, so it was the first one in Italy having an underpass
to access platform.
The line is almost straight and flat, moving from Firenze S.M.N to Rifredi, Castello, Sesto Fiorentino, Calenzano to prato, where it split in two, one to Pistoia, the other to Bologna. In origin the line was at ground level and climbed a little just to enter into Prato porta al Serraglio Station.
The upgrading of this line occurred in different
times: in 1912 the line was doubletracked, in 1927 it was electrified at
3.4kV 3phase 16.7 Hz, supplied by a substation
in Rifredi, then in 1934 the line to Bologna
via Vernio was opened.
At that time was built the new station of Prato, on
ENE side of the city. Since the junction with the new line was at an higher
level all the line from Calenzano to Sesto was raised a few meter, and
all had to be made without interrupting the service (and then even the
new station is a two level one - and in toscana there is only another one,
Firenze Statuto, with the two level same arrangement).
Only in 1933 about 8 months before opening the new line the electic service was suspended, to allow changing the catenary for DC, in april 1934 the [then] new line "direttissima" to Bologna was opened.
In the seventies, with the increasing of demand for commuter service, and increase on long distance services too the two track become to show insufficient so two more were laid.
The
works were a long thing, since at the same time also the station of Prato
was enlarged, offering two more tracks for passenger traffic and building
a new freight yard south.
This allowed to have in that station a complete
separation of trains, using tracks 1 and 2 to/from pistoia, 5 and 6 for
through train to Bologna, and 3, 4 and 7 to store train , in picture above
you see on track 7 a local train to Bologna, althought its cars are too
much luxurious for a local; train ....
From the freight yard depart toward south a single
track (picture on right) leading to the freight center of Gonfienti.
At the same time tiny stop of Castello had to be
removed to make space for more main tracks, and rebuilt about 700 m north,
with a large freight yard, to serve as the main freight station in Firenze
(getting all freight services that were previously in Rifredi,
and almost all that were in Campo Marte, and
in perspective the few ones remained at Porta al Prato)
Leandro Colli offered me some pictures taken during the last part of works on the renovation of the line so i will add them to this site. Some of the pictures have been shot from the train on 18 september 1999 (according the use in these pages whose names begin with 99s18, other have been shot by Leandro and begin with lc/lc),
As
the works of doubling even this description go south, leaving from Prato.
The picture on right is a view of the hills north of the line, where until 8th century the road used to pass.
From Prato the first Station was Calenzano, with the addition of the pair of tracks for local train however it "disappeared" or better remained just as a stop. The First station one found now from Prato is Sesto Fiorentino, after 7 km .
Just below one picture showing the first two tracks, used for long distance
trains (with speed up to 180 km/h) and the wooden freight loading platform.
The
first section to be opened was the one between Prato and Sesto.
I do not have pictures of the works in progress, but
i remember that for years trains were switched between the old and the
new tracks, since some adjustment had to be made on the alignement of the
tracks, expecially entering the stations. But this was nothing in confront
of what will happen between Castello and Rifredi
...
Except Sesto and Castello that have platforms on
all 4 tracks, all the other stops (Pratignone, Calenzano, Neto, Zambra
and Rifredi itself) have only one platworm between
tracks 3 and 4 (the local ones) . In this picture you see how appeared
the stop at Zambra (between Sesto and Castello) during the costruction,
before catenary was laid.
After Sesto, on the right, one see some sheds, with
a large pit between them.
On left how it is today, or right an image of 1985,
that explain what it was, that is a plant for repairing refrigerated cars.
The pit of course was for the transverstor bridge ... In origin it was
connected to the station of Castello with the track in front (click on
right picture to have a today view from the same place)
Now one arrive, 13 km from Prato, at the station of Castello.
The building is quite new, since it has been opened in the nineties, and is made by two part, with a similar style: one is on first track, with the operative offices and waiting room, the other is in middle of the yard and have freight offices and personnel rooms.
The
station In origin was about 700 m south, in direction of Firenze and here
is a picture taken before it was demolished. You can see the grade crossing
with the barriers still between the old and the new tracks.
As you can see from the roof the building had been party cut, and the traffic
rerouted on the new tracks.
The reasons for this move were two: the first one
was the necessity of having a new freight yard, requiring much more space,
unavailable on old location, the second was that in this very place where
in origin was the tiny statin had to pass 6 trachs, two of the line to
Olmatello, used as a bypass for freight trains
going on the line to Livorno
In
the picture at right you can see two of the first train passing here after
the opening of the new tracks.
The
picture above instead show the same place after the demolition of the station
(with the lights still standing) and below another train, in the same place,
where the new platform for the new station can be seen behind track 2 .
the pictures whose name begin with lc are by Leandro Colli
