Narrow-gauge train to Cortina d'Ampezzo

Using the groundworks of the 70 cm Austrian military railway and utilising the reparations paid by World War losing Austria to Italy, Ferrovia della Dolomiti, a 950 mm/95 cm gauge narrow-gauge railway had been built of a total length of 65 km from Toblach in South-Tyrol through Cortina d'Ampezzo to Calalzo, where connection to the Italian mainlines was provided. The railway line was opened for civil travel in 1921 and electrification was finished by 1929 with 2700 V direct current.

Track arrangement

Pustertal, the valley housing the South-Tyrol mainline through San Candido/Innichen has an East-West alignment. The railway to Cortina d'Ampezzo started out through one of the side valleys at the maximum gradient of 35 permille. The valley landscape is broken by a number of lakes until the highest elevation is reached at 1528 metres at Passo Cimbanche. The railway soon left the German language area and arrived into the region of Venice, and breaks out in another valley to reach Cortina. From there it continues its descent all along to Calalzo. Along the line altogether 40 major bridges were built, out of which 12 are viaducts, some of which had been built as Austrian military bridges that are still there in this semi-temporary state. Upon completetion, there have been 4 pairs of trains a day to the South and one pair to the North of Cortina d'Ampezzo. A few years later the daily number of trains was increased to 9 and 3 pairs South and North, respectively.

Olympics

In 1949, Cortina d'Ampezzo won the right to organize the Winter Olympics of 1956 (in those years the Summer and Winter games had been held in the same year, in that case, together with Melbourne). The little trains are expected to have a great part in the organization so the safety systems are upgraded, new traffic lights are erected at level crossings and besides the old, four-axle railcars new, articulated twin and three-part multiple units are bought. They are intended to work at the same time as the old trains during the Olympics and to replace the old sets afterwards. All these upgrades cost one billion lyra altogether, but the railway manages to bring all the spectators to and from the games, even president Giovanni Gronchi has arrived at the opening ceremony by the little train.

Closure

The North branch's traffic is taken over by buses in 1962 and that of the South branch in 1964. Tourism of today's level was unheared of those days so it could have appeared to be a wise and economical move. Cortina (together with Milan) has one the rights of the upcoming Winter Games and it is questionable how these cities are going to do without rail traffic this time. In the previous decades it was very important to choose a candidate city with appropriate public transportation, but now, that candidate cities are scarce, the requirements are lower. Plans of rebuilding the railway emerge over and over again, but on a different alignment as the current one is used by bikers currently; a new track is impossible to be built though until the upcoming Winter Olympics.

• Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolomitenbahn 
• Other mountain narrow-gauge railways in Europe