Prototype By rail round Europe: Venice

[AJC]

So, we went to Italy last year and, this year, did the same again, albeit with a bit more time in Turin and by a rather more direct route than the Gotthard pass (or even the base tunnel). So here are a few token train snaps from the journey. It's rather difficult to take pictures from the windows of a speeding TGV, but as we called at Chambéry and stopped more or less opposite its handsome roundhouse, why not give it a go?



These two BB75000 have the look of depot 'Christmas trees' and likely won't be going any further than Colux (we'll come to there later) for scrapping.



In service, but like all the freight I saw, not going anywhere very much (wrong time of day) was this Y 8000 shunter which makes a nice study in weathering. The comparison above and below the footplate is rater striking, made more so by the fact that SNCF Fret have chosen white as a principal livery colour.



By luck, this lineup, with a BB26000 on a rake of tanks with a stabled Z26500 EMU with another in service. My experience of double deck EMUs is interesting: the dwell times of those used on the Paris RER are utterly appalling... More later.

Adam

 

[AJC]

And so to Turin - which, as all proper (or at least, as I think of them) European cities should have - has trams and in a variety of liveries. The most modern, products of Alsthom, are in the silver, blue, and yellow livery of GTT, but the more interesting are these, in orange:





And also in this rather natty two-tone green:



Note that these are all single-ended, something more or less unknown in UK practise, and a characteristic not shared by the more modern vehicles. I rather like Turin and next time we go, we really must visit some of the museums. Anyhow, having had an overnight stay there in a fabulous 16th-century loggia it was on to Venice, by Frecciarossa and rather quicker than last year - owing to the opening of more high speed line. First, a few pictures of commuter traffic at Torino Porta Nuova:





The motive power for these, of course, were the ubiquitous, and quite attractive in a snub-nosed sort of a way, e464 electrics with their odd arrangement of capped Scharfenberg couplings and OLEO buffers, exactly per those found on UK stock, just without the heads... The mismatched liveries - Trenitalia XMPR for the locos, Viva Alto for the coaching stock is typical. The single-deck coaches - about 8 of 'em - just visible in the background also had an e464 on the front.



And, of course, here's what we were travelling on, a genuine high speed train:



One thing to note, and it was apparent throughout the trip, is that the platforms here have been raised. It's still a fair step down, though nothing on say, the chasm I experience at Kew Bridge on a weekday.

Adam

 

[allegheny1600]

Ooh!
I look forward to more of this, please!
I knew France quite well in the 70's and 80's, even into the 90's a little and it's railways today seem a far cry from those halcyon days, much like our own I suppose but Italy, wow!
Italian fashion & design certainly has been brought into play on their railways, must be worth a visit one day. I love all those various high speed trains they have.
Cheers,
John.

 

[AJC]

Hi John - these are really simply snaps taken from our journey rather than any attempt to systematically record anything! In Italy, there is clearly some significant modernisation under way but much that is clearly a legacy of earlier operation (the approach to Milano Centrale, for example is littered with water cranes and enormous - but now seemingly disused - signal boxes). Some signs of this modernisation and the maintenance effort are included below:



These drasines are totally ubiquitous and clearly do a whole range of jobs. In the carriage sidings outside Milano Centrale; at Bardoecchia there's a contrast in culture: over here all these jobs would be done by road-railers:



I'm not sure that the vehicle below is actually capable of shifting that pair of ballast hoppers. There's an etched kit available for those hoppers by the by and I have one as a future project...



Something definitely up to the job is this large, imported diesel at Monza. Such things, mostly German, so far as I can tell - the KOFs definitely are - have presumably been displaced elsewhere and now perform infrastructure work, much of it apparently in the hands of private contractors.



Also of interest is this brand new signal - the clues are the ladder which looks just like a flat etch!



Adam

 

[allegheny1600]

Hi Adam,
More fascinating stuff, thanks! Yes, that Diesel is definitely German, I'd say it could well be a Deutz loco as described here: KHD DG 1200 BBM – Wikipedia - I recognised it from my interest in Private German railways!
I understand that in Italy, a lot of modellers use 'kit ottone' (brass kits!) - it is nearly as common there as here, apparently.
Cheers,
John.

 

[AJC]

Hi Adam,
More fascinating stuff, thanks! Yes, that Diesel is definitely German, I'd say it could well be a Deutz loco as described here: KHD DG 1200 BBM – Wikipedia - I recognised it from my interest in Private German railways!
I understand that in Italy, a lot of modellers use 'kit ottone' (brass kits!) - it is nearly as common there as here, apparently.
Cheers,
John.

That looks about right; dad has an ancient PIKO (I think) version from a trip to Poland. It's a reasonable model, as these things go, but there are - if I was especially interested - better ones out there. The ballast hopper is from Linea Model and, barring the wheels, looks very good indeed. We shall see...

Adam

 

[AJC]

After an evening partly spent fettling etched screw couplings, and mostly rewriting a seminar paper on aspects of medieval Welsh law (look, it gets me away from Ealing), a few more holiday snaps, this time from Venice. So here you go, a view from the Academia Bridge at dusk; I've literally hundreds of this sort of thing...



Moving more in a WT direction, I took a lot of pictures showing how the canal is actually used and the relics of one industry in use by another. This is Molino Stucky, once the world's largest pasta factory, on the Giudecca. If it all looks a bit Teutonic (I fancy the Kibri logo could be applied to this picture), that's because the architect was German. It's now the Hilton...



This must be rather like going to Weymouth and taking pictures of 4 TCs rather than going to the beach or walking the coast path... Venezia Santa Lucia.



How many Venetians get to work; the city itself seems to be much give up to tourists, and I can see why. Push-pull driving trailers (single deck these) - the quartered disc shows that the train is complete. More exotic, to our eyes, is the double deck version, this in the latest Trenitalia livery. Silver paint is clearly this decade's fade effect, stylistically - see Chiltern's latest livery over here, for example.





My impression is that there is less graffitti than perhaps there was, but where you do see it, it's noticable. These are all powered, of course, by yet another e464, this one decorated by one of the more prolific taggers in the greater Venice area. There's lots of freight about, too, but not in Venice itself and I seem to have missed the frequent EMUs.




Their high speed trains are, definitively, more stylish than ours.



Adam