La ferrovia Saline di Volterra-Volterra città. Progetti, realizzazione e future prospettive

Built on a steep hilltop, 500 meters above the sea level, the city of Volterra, Tuscany, Italy, has been towering over the surroundings since Etruscan times. However, the once privileged position became fairly lame as travelling and business traffic expanded in the contiguous flatland. It is no wonder that Volterra, since Italy became a unified Kingdom in 1961, became more and more interested in being included within the railway network that was being built at the time, to the extent that it would propose and pursue joint projects or its own plans for the upcoming railway tracks. Despite the high position to be reached, which required thecnological addition, namely the “cremagliera”, the rack gear, affected the economic burden of the problem, and limited any given effort of implementation over fifty years, the city succeded in its mission in 1912, when the railway route from Saline di Volterra to the City was opened to the public. The tracks had been succsessfully operated until 1958, when the line was closed due to the dwindling number of passengers and the increasing costs. The railway equipment was later dismantled and the path was turned into a trekking route. Nowadays, interest over the railway tradition of Volterra has been risen again. Following in this footstep, the archival research carried out in June 2016 by a group of 12 students from University of Pisa uncovered several original details, including one unpublished preliminary project for the route by Ingegner Filippo Allegri.