picture 1 picture 1
After its shut down in 1943 the Line was gradually reopened: in 1948 the section from Borgo S. Lorenzo to S. Piero a Sieve was opened.
But works stopped again there. In 1972 the small orphan line from S. Piero to Borgo S.Lorenzo was again closed and went to rust. This is the station of S. Piero a Sieve as looked in 1987:
pictures 2, 3
Someone also told that goats were hired to cut the grasses low, to
do a better appearence to the station .....
pictures 4, 5
But efforts was vain and rust began to ate everything .... These picture
are the reportage of a visit done on may 1987.
At that time I was still unmarried and had a lot of time to wander
around for rails .... now I have some problems ...
pictures 6, 7
At the time you could found there even some old 1883 rails (these are
rails get somewhere during the 1948 works, since are older than original
line).
(note that the turntable at Borgo
S.Lorenzo is also from that date and the rails on it are marked 84)
photo 8, 9
This grade crossing now have been eliminated with an underpass some
hundreds meter north. The leverage you see above are the remote control
for the barriers.
photo 10, 11
The small building on the second picture is the switchman guard. You
can see other images on the Montorsoli
page (althought only this one at San Piero has survived the rebuilding).
At the time of original building of the line (1888-1892) there were no
remote controls for switch, so in case of bad wheather the personnel could
recover in these buildings. Here a more recent example.
pictures 12, 13
Note the old lettering on the doors and the chimney for the wood stove
in the offices. It was traditional in italian stations at turn of century
to have in waiting rooms large coal or wood stoves.
pictures 14,15
Look also at the lettering on the station: every line had its own style.
Around 1979 work very quetly began again ... all trees and grasses grown
on the way was cut (and this occurred at least 4 times, the weed was faster
than works) ... In 1984 at S. Piero one could see a lot of new concrete
ties.
Picture 16
But until 1995 no rail was seen and eventually these ties where scrapped
unused.
However in 1993 the project for a new high speed line from Firenze to Bologna went on its way, buf before building the line howewer was necessary to reach an agreement with local administrations, beside to get a way to carry away all materials excavated during digging the new tunnels.
So the works on this line received new life.
In 1996 the first (special) trains could reach S. Piero a Sieve, not
yet a regular service, but the station was ready.
Regular service, althought only Mon-Fri, began on june 1997.
the images of the station in 1999 can be seen here
