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A new role for an old railway: an Italian case study

Stefano Maggi (University of Sienna)

PAPER (pdf)

Abstract:

This paper deals with cultural value and significance, conservation aspects, re-use and tourism.

All over Europe, the old branch lines, built when the train was the main means of transport, need to find a new role in the age of mass motorization.

Quality tourists appreciate the cultural value of an old railway, when the railway is integrated on a territory, where the train was fundamental in the XIXth and XXth century for connecting towns and villages.

The stations, depots and goods yards of the railway and the scenery visible from the train windows represent an important value added for making the most in the marketing of a territory.

Slow trains can give an historical interest to discover a territory, sometimes also for the residents of the zone.

In their contrast, new tram-trains and old trains can give an innovative image of the railway.

In Italy the use of railway heritage is a very recent development, due to the fact that only the remains of the Roman and the Medieval Age were considered as History.

Historical trains on some branch lines have developed independent of the railway preservation movement which was establishing all over the world, leaving from Great Britain in 1951. We can say that it happened in spite of that movement, without the discussions of scholarly researches in comparative perspective.

In the 1990s, the demand increased for steam trains by groups who would charter them for special occasions, at times on the secondary railways, at other times on the national network and usually for travelling into the countryside.

My paper will analyse a railway line in Tuscany and the attempt to develop historical trains as a re-use with cultural value, on a line closed to normal traffic, the Orcia Valley Railway Asciano-Monte Antico, in Tuscany. This railway was closed in 1994 and tourist trains have until now prevented the track from the definitive abandon, while contributing to give value to the valley, which became UNESCO world heritage.

Associate professor in Contemporary History, University of Siena, Italy.