RFI announces the demolition and reconstruction of the metal girders of three bridges The line will be safer, three level crossings will be eliminated at Strambino
IVREA. Stop the circulation of trains for 28 days on the Chivasso-Aosta railway line, in the section between Ivrea and Aosta. From 14 June to 11 July Rfi will carry out modernization and upgrading works for a total of 11 million euros. Interventions expected for years and which the Italian railway network presented yesterday to the Valle d’Aosta Region, Trenitalia, trade unions and commuter associations. Several construction sites along the route will impose the closure to traffic of regional trains which will be replaced with buses made available to the railway company, while the connections to and from Turin will terminate at the Ivrea station.
The planned activities, which will improve safety on the route, specifically envisage technological updating interventions that will improve the automatic systems present on the line to support traffic. The metal girders of three bridges will be demolished and rebuilt: that of Ivrea, that of Hône-Bard and that between Montjovet and Châtillon. In addition, 11 switches will be replaced in various locations and ten kilometers of line will be renewed with the replacement of tracks and sleepers. Of great importance is the elimination of three level crossings in Strambino, a real cross for commuters from Canavese and Valle d’Aosta. It is an old level crossing that cyclically go haywire slowing down a section that is already slow due to the presence of the single track. The latest work on site includes extraordinary maintenance work on the lighting system in the Hône-Bard and Verrès stations. «The period from 14 June to 11 July was chosen – explain by Italian Railways – in conjunction with the closure of schools and in a period in which the influx of tourists in Valle d’Aosta is still low. Unfortunately, given the need to intervene in the reconstruction of the metal girders of three bridges, it was not possible to work only at night, as we usually do ». From Monday 12 July, traffic on the Ivrea-Aosta section will resume regularly but with some necessary slowdowns that will last seven days.
Meanwhile, there is a wait for the definitive project (the preliminary dates back to 2010) for the electrification of the Aosta-Ivrea section, which RFI announced ready in the second half of this year. The estimated costs are 81 million euros. In fact, in this phase Rfi will decide how to manage the node of the two Ivrea tunnels to be raised, whether to do it, that is, by endorsing the solution envisaged in the preliminary agreement or to explore new ones. To electrify the railway line it is necessary to raise the road embankment under which the trains pass by one meter, from the tunnel on the Dora in Corso Cavour to Porta Aosta: the railway tunnel after the bridge over the Dora that passes under the center, and the other in fact, at the Aosta gate, they do not have the minimum height to allow convoys to pass. The work would risk paralyzing the heart of the city for a year, according to the times always hypothesized by the preliminary project and which now the final one will have to take into consideration.