Railway network of Sicily

[5] A short time later the Institute for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts and Crafts in Palermo announced a competition for the study of a rail network of Sicily; in this context a project that set as a priority the construction of the Palermo-Girgenti railroad with a branch line to Caltanissetta and Licata arose.

[9] The first short section of a railway in Sicily was built in 1863 by engineer Francesco Durante Scimone, when tracks were laid between the capital and the nearby town of Bagheria.

The Palermo-Catania railroad opened in the same period made use of the original first section between Palermo and Bagheria and then penetrated into inland Sicily, stopping, however, at the station of Roccapalumba near the sulfur area of Lercara Friddi with the specific purpose of conveying mined ore to the port of Palermo;[11] in 1869 the first section between Catania and Bicocca opened and by mid-1870 it was active as far as Pirato (Leonforte);[10] this was the route that most interested sulfur industrialists because of the extensive mining basin of Grottacalda, Floristella and Sant'Agostino.

Also in Catania, the Circumetnea railway, which with its tracks encircles the enormous massif of Mount Etna at its base, was completed in 1898; however, In the initial plans it had been clamored for the line to reach even the towns to the north of the province of Enna, which instead remained without railroads.

Preliminary plans, again, envisioned the continuation of the line as far as Leonforte and Nicosia, from where it would cross the Madonie Mountains, disgorging in the direction of Termini Imerese, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, so that the Ennese area, with its large sulfur basins in Catania and Palermo, could be more quickly connected, and above all to reduce the problem of the excessive gradient of the Misericordia pass in Enna, which reached as much as 32 per thousand; the line, on the other hand, was designed with a maximum gradient of 21 per thousand.

The old idea was taken up, in principle, in the early 2000s by an RFI SpA project for the construction of a new Messina-Catania-Palermo high-speed/high-capacity carrier axis using part of the historic Catania-Palermo route, (with the necessary adjustments and doubled), from Catania Bicocca Station to Catenanuova-Centuripe Station, then pointing towards the Erean Mountains in the direction of Regalbuto and with a series of tunnels for a total of 39 km, and crossing the last offshoots of the Nebrodi Mountains until reaching the Messina-Palermo coastal line at Castelbuono, just before Cefalù.

The Sicilian railroad network, which was largely created in the 70 years between the Unification of Italy and the first decade of Mussolini's government, underwent little change since then until after World War II when, especially with the so-called Scalfaro decree, the disposal of some lines that were deemed too costly in terms of the ratio of revenue to yield began despite the fact that they served, sometimes as the only link, the local populations of inland areas.

[18] In 2008, the network was paradoxically configured to resemble that of the early 20th century, with slightly less extension, but in 2010 additional rail routes were suspended and uncertainty remains about the fate of important lines such as the Syracuse-Gela-Canicattì and the Alcamo-Castelvetrano-Trapani.

The Tyrrhenian Palermo-Messina was fully inaugurated in 1895, replacing the very long previous route that, from Palermo, passed through Aragona, Caltanissetta, Enna, and Catania before finally reaching Messina.

It was the first line in the region to be built in its entirety between 1867 and 1871, with the present layout except for the modern double-track variant sections between Fiumefreddo and Catania and between central Messina and Giampilieri.

The line begins double-track from central Messina to Giampilieri from where it becomes single-track; from here and as far as Taormina it passes through densely inhabited areas and alternates between sections in the open and in tunnels; the line penetrates further, continuing on Giarre (where there is a connection with the FCE) and Acireale becoming double-track again shortly after the station of Fiumefreddo di Sicilia and up to the entrance of Catania; the Acireale section is, since the 1980s, almost entirely in tunnels following the construction of the double track.

The construction period of more than 20 years can be explained by the topographical difficulties of the stretches of land crossed, as well as by the length of the line, about 240 km, which passes through the inland provincial capitals, Enna and Caltanissetta.

Initially, when it was built it was a connection on Lercara and later for Girgenti because the primary interest was mainly in getting sulfur from the inland basins of Sicily to the ports of Palermo or Porto Empedocle.

The railroad continues to the Villarosa Station, once an important sulfur depot and since 8 December 1995 the site of an interesting Railway Museum, of mining art and rural culture, set up entirely aboard vintage wagons.

The line continues downhill through arable fields and citrus groves to Catenanuova and beyond through the Plain of Catania; the proximity to the Etnean capital is made tangible by the sight of the industrial settlements and the airport.

[24][25] In 2017, the approval of the final project, signed by Maurizio Gentile, CEO and general manager of Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, resulted in the tendering of the doubling and speeding of the Bicocca - Catenanuova lot.

The call for tenders for the executive design and construction work was published in the Official Journal of the European Union and on RFI's procurement portal for a base bid amount of 220 million euros.

[24] The network, which can be defined as minor because of its narrow gauge, developed as an extension and complement to two main lines: the north-south transversal Palermo-Corleone-San Carlo and the longitudinal coastal Castelvetrano-Porto Empedocle.

[26] Of the Sicilian railways in concession only one has survived the cuts and closures; the Ferrovia Circumetnea, which has shown constant vitality and despite experiencing periods of great difficulty has been moving, since the threshold of the 2000s, toward adaptation to metropolitan and tourist traffic with further network expansion projects.

The other line, the Syracuse-Ragusa-Vizzini Railroad, which ran through the Anapo Valley, was closed and dismantled in the late 1950s despite representing, if upgraded, the shortest link between Ragusa and Catania and a valuable means of tourist transportation to Pantalica.

[2] Sicily's railroads, all or most of which were designed or date back to the second half of the nineteenth century, of which some were even built or started only during the twenty-year period of Fascist rule, such as the Motta Sant'Anastasia-Regalbuto and the Alcantara-Randazzo, have undergone few and limited upgrading works and some have been abandoned to their own devices, condemning them to irreversible obsolescence.

Since the 1980s, only a few rail sections afferent to the island's major cities have been built, such as the branch line to Punta Raisi airport and some doubling of the main single-track network, such as the one between Messina and Patti, and between Targia and Syracuse.

(The heavy costs of ongoing rehabilitation work, eventually globally outweighing those of any modernization, contributed to the decision to close the extensive FS narrow-gauge network.)

Sicily's rail network has a predominantly local significance; connections, via the strait, ferrying rolling stock between the stations of Villa San Giovanni and Messina Marittima were greatly reduced during the first decade of the 2000s.

The contract seems to have laid the groundwork for a start on the modernization of the important route,[33] so much so that the government the following year earmarked more than 800 million[25] for the Palermo-Messina-Catania rail axis to carry out part of the work.

[34] Alongside the projects, however, the shortcomings of the island's rail system also remain evident, which appears, especially in its internal lines, to be obsolete and uncompetitive in its infrastructure, forcing convoys to move very often at average speeds below 100 km/h.

Moreover, the lines cross areas that are geologically unstable, which undermine the delicate rail and road structure of Sicily, further penalizing rail transport, given the long times and high costs required to restore the damaged sections: suffice it to say that to date, the Caltagirone - Gela and Trapani - Palermo via Milo sections, closed since 8 May 2011 and 25 February 2013 respectively, for a total of more than 130 km in total, are unusable due to structural failure or landslides.

From here on, it passes through the main centers of the western district, Capaci and Carini, and from the latter to Punta Raisi Airport, it is a double-track section, with considerable commuter and tourist traffic between the air terminal and the Sicilian capital.

Its construction, albeit with some phases of work slowdown, has continued by progressively activating other sections of the urban service but with the aim of extending the connection to the Piedmontese Etna centers of Paternò, Piano Tavola and Misterbianco and to reach Librino and Fontanarossa airport.

[citation needed] Between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a number of extra-urban tramway lines were also built in Sicily to connect the larger cities and the surrounding area; they lost their viability as a result of the development of road transport from the 1930s onward.