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The Milan–Bologna railway is the northern part of the traditional main north-south trunk line of the Italian railway network. It closely follows the ancient Roman Road, the Via Aemilia. The line was opened between 1859 and 1861 as a single-line railway, and was doubled between 1866 and 1894. It was electrified at 3,000 volts DC in 1938. High-speed trains on the route have used the parallel Milan–Bologna high-speed line since 13 December 2008. ==History== |} The Milan–Bologna line was not built as it is now but was created out of the merger of two existing lines built at different times and for different purposes: it was formed by linking the line from Milan towards Piacenza with the line from Turin through Piacenza to Bologna, Florence and Rome. The Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was until 1859 still part of the Austrian Empire and conceived concessions for the construction of railways, not so much for its commercial advantages as for military purposes and to bring together the various geographical regions of the empire. As early as September 1835 the Venice Chamber of Commerce had asked permission to form a company for the construction and operation of a railway line from Venice to Milan, but found it very difficult to obtain this "privilege". The first railway in the region, the Milan–Monza line, was opened in 1840. The second line, opened in 1842, was the first section of the Milan–Venice line, fully completed in 1857. By that time railways were proliferating even in the Piedmont; in 1859 when Austria declared war on Sardinia the Piedmontese and Austrian networks had come close to the point where the bridge over the Ticino River was subsequently built connecting Turin and Milan. The Austrians were defeated and on 11 July 1859 signed the Armistice of Villafranca; Lombardy was annexed to the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Veneto remained Austrian. As a result, the Lombard rail network was separated from that of Austria and therefore the nature of its development and operations changed. Instead of links with Venice, links with central Italy and the Adriatic Sea were promoted. The Treaty of Zürich signed on 10 November 1859 also included an agreement that was the origin of the ''Società delle Strade Ferrate della Lombardia e dell'Italia Centrale'' (Lombardy and Central Italy Railway Company) and the ''Società delle Strade Ferrate dell'Austria meridionale e del Veneto'' (Southern Austria and Veneto Railway Company). Both companies soon began building new lines and completing others: on 21 July 1859 the 146 km long Piacenza–Bologna line was opened, and on 14 November 1861 the 68 km long Milan-Piacenza section was opened with a temporary wooden bridge over the Po River. In 1863 a flood swept away the structures and the line was interrupted several times. The construction of a long steel girder bridge, completed in 1864, put an end to the insecurity of the rail link. Meanwhile, Piacenza had already been connected to the Piedmont network in 1860 and the important Turin–Bologna–Ancona trunk route was completed in 1861. This line was extended to Foggia in 1863 and Brindisi in 1865. The first crossing of the Apennine between Bologna and Florence, the Porrettana line, was completed in 1863. In 1865 many small railway companies were merged into four large companies that took over the assets and lines along with the granting of new concessions. The ''Società delle Strade Ferrate della Lombardia e dell'Italia Centrale'' was merged with other Alpine and Apennine lines, becoming the Società per le strade ferrate dell'Alta Italia ("Upper Italian Railway", ''SFAI'') with 2,092 km of lines in operation and 300 km under construction or proposed. In 1871 with the opening of the Fréjus Rail Tunnel to rail traffic,〔 a mail train, the ''Indian Mail'' (known in Italian as ''La Valigia delle Indie'') was routed over the line from Piacenza to Bologna; it operated weekly from London and Paris via Modane and Turin to Ancona and Brindisi, where it connected with steamships to India via the Suez Canal. In 1879 this became a passenger train, and later carriages were branded "CIWL" (Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits) by agreement with the operator of the line, the SFAI. The commercial speed of the train, however, remained low at about 40 km/h, due to the condition of the line and its bridges. The reorganisation of the Italian railways into four companies, however, gave rise to more problems than it solved, so in 1885 the railways were divided between two new companies, the ''Società per le Strade Ferrate del Mediterraneo'' — known as the ''Rete Mediterranea'' (Mediterranean Network) and comprising the lines west of Milan and on the Tyrrhenian coast, and the railways of Calabria and Basilicata — and the ''Società Italiana per le strade ferrate meridionali''—known as the ''Rete Adriatica'' (Adriatic Network), comprising the remaining lines. These networks connected at various stations: Milan, Pavia, Piacenza, Parma, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Naples and Taranto. The Milan–Bologna line had been built as a single track, so it was divided between the two companies: passengers departed from Milan on a Mediterranean Network train and changed at Parma or Piacenza to an Adriatic Network train to reach Bologna. Starting in 1890 the Adriatic Network agreed to the luxurious Peninsular and Oriental Express from London to Brindisi operating on the line at up to 80 km/h. The line was later doubled, starting with the Piacenza–Parma section, and access to it was granted to both companies. The doubling started in 1866 and was completed in 1894. The line between Milan to Piacenza was originally not used much, except for local traffic; most travellers preferred to take direct trains between the "capitals" of Turin, Florence and Rome. The first daily direct connection between Milan and Rome started in 1880: the "1" Express. By the end of the century there were about ten expresses from Milan in each direction. The first section (Fornovo–Parma) of the Pontremolese line, connecting the Milan–Bologna line to La Spezia and the Tyrrhenian Sea was opened on 2 July 1883; the line was completed on 12 July 1894. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Milan–Bologna railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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