Rittnerbahn (Ritten Railway) | |||
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Overview | |||
Locale | Ritten plateau, near Bolzano, Italy | ||
Termini |
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Stations | 5 | ||
Service | |||
Type | Passenger light railway, or rural tramway | ||
Operator(s) | SAD | ||
History | |||
Opened | August 13, 1907 | ||
Technical | |||
Line length | 6.6 km (4.1 mi) [1] | ||
Track gauge | 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) metre gauge | ||
Electrification | 750 Volts DC, overhead lines | ||
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The Ritten Railway (German : Rittnerbahn or Rittner Bahn, Italian : Ferrovia del Renon) is an electric light railway which originally connected Bolzano with the Ritten plateau and today continues to operate on the plateau, connecting the villages located there.
When opened in 1907 the line started as a tramway at Walther Square in the center of Bolzano, where it shared the track with the Bolzano town tramways as far as the Brenner Road. From there to Maria Himmelfahrt the line was a rack railway, climbing 990 metres until it reached the plateau. A special rack locomotive was placed behind the trams to push them uphill. In the middle of this ascent was a crossing loop so that two trains could cross. The train that went down to Bolzano produced some of the power that was needed to get the other train up. After arriving in Maria Himmelfahrt on the Ritten plateau, the locomotive was uncoupled and the trams were able to proceed unaided on normal tracks to the terminal station in the village of Klobenstein.
In the 19th century the Ritten plateau was a popular place for the people of Bolzano, who liked to pass their weekends there. To connect the two places, it was decided to build a rack railway, and in 1906 the railway engineer Josef Riehl commenced the planning of the line. In April 1907 construction was finished, and the railway was officially inaugurated on 13 August 1907. The full length of the line, from Walterplatz in Bolzano to Klobenstein, was 11.75 km. [1]
In the 1960s a road was built between Bolzano and Ritten, and after that the railway was nearly abandoned and maintenance reduced. A decision was taken to replace the rack railway with an aerial cable car. Shortly before the cableway was opened a train derailed on the rack railway and many people were seriously injured and some of them even killed. The likely cause was the sharply reduced maintenance. The rack section closed in 1966, leaving in operation the section from Maria Himmelfahrt to Klobenstein, which still operates today. It was fully renovated in 1985.
A new tricable gondola lift with eight gondolas, that can carry 550 persons per hour, opened on 23 May 2009. [2] [3]
The remaining line is used by tourists, locals and railway enthusiasts. The company that currently operates the line is the same company that runs all the buses in the province and also the Vinschgerbahn in the Vinschgau valley.
Most trips serve only the section between Klobenstein (Collalbo in Italian) and Oberbozen (Soprabolzano; Upper Bolzano in English), a distance of 5.5 km. Only three or four trips per day serve the 1.1-km section between Oberbozen and Maria Himmelfahrt. [4] Although South Tyrol has been part of Italy since 1919, local places (such as Klobenstein) are more commonly referred to by their German-language names than by their Italian ones, because the majority of the population speaks primarily German [4] (about 69%). [5]
In 1982, used tramcars, built in 1958, were bought from the Esslingen–Nellingen–Denkendorf Tramway [6] in Esslingen, Germany, which had closed in 1978, to replace some of the oldest cars and to allow longer maintenance stays for the historic cars. Two motor trams (Nos. 12-13) and two trailers (36–37) [6] were acquired, but only car 12 ever entered service on the Rittnerbahn—and not until 1992. [7]
Today, some of the original ones are at the Tiroler Museumsbahnen museum in Innsbruck. In spring 2009, two slightly newer, second-hand cars were added to the fleet with the purchase of cars 21 and 24 (built in 1975 and 1977, respectively) from the Trogenerbahn DE in St. Gallen, Switzerland. [8]
Light rail is a form of passenger urban rail transit using rolling stock derived from tram technology while also having some features from heavy rapid transit.
Ritten is a comune (municipality) in South Tyrol in northern Italy.
Bolzano is the capital city of the province of Bolzano - South Tyrol, in Northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third largest in historical Tyrol. The greater metro area has about 250,000 inhabitants and is one of the urban centres within the Alps.
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Various terms are used for passenger railway lines and equipment; the usage of these terms differs substantially between areas:
The Stuttgart Rack Railway is an electric rack railway in Stuttgart, Germany, known affectionately as the Zacke (spike) or Zacketse by the local residents. The line opened on 23 August 1884 and links Marienplatz in the city centre to Degerloch on the Filder plateau. It is integrated with the Stadtbahn network of the Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen (SSB) and since 1978 has been line 10. At Marienplatz it connects with lines U1 and U14 and at Degerloch it connects with lines U5, U6, U8 and U12. Ordinary VVS tickets are valid.
Stadtbahn is a German word referring to various types of urban rail transport. One type of transport originated in the 19th century, firstly in Berlin and followed by Vienna, where rail routes were created that could be used independently from other traffic.
Germany has an extensive number of tramway networks. Some of these networks have been upgraded to light rail standards, called Stadtbahn in German. Straßenbahn and Stadtbahn schemes are usually operated on the legal foundation of the BOStrab, the Tramways Act of Germany.
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The Bolzano Tram is a former transport net, built to connect the various villages near Bolzano, in what is now South Tyrol, northern Italy. At the time, Zwölfmalgreien, Bolzano and Gries were three independent municipalities.
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The Munich tramway is the tramway network for the city of Munich in Germany. Today it is operated by the municipally owned Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft and is known officially and colloquially as the Tram. Previous operators have included Société Anonyme des Tramways de Munich, the Münchner Trambahn-Aktiengesellschaft, the Städtische Straßenbahnen and the Straßenbahn München.
The Tyrolean Museum Railways or Tiroler MuseumsBahnen (TMB) is a railway society in Austria whose aim is the preservation and/or documentation of the historically important branch lines (known as Localbahnen) and their rolling stock in the state of Tyrol.
Tyrol is a historical region in the Alps of Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, from its formation in the 12th century until 1919. In 1919, following World War I and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, it was divided into two modern administrative parts through the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye:
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Media related to Rittner Bahn at Wikimedia Commons