Rimini–San Marino railway

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The Rimini–San Marino railway was a 31.5-kilometre (19.6-mile) electrified narrow-gauge railway that connected Rimini, Italy, with the City of San Marino, Republic of San Marino. The line was operational for twelve years between 1932 and 1944. A significant engineering feat of its time, it included seventeen tunnels, three bridges, and three viaducts to negotiate the steep terrain. During the Second World War, the line was bombed and closed, after which its tunnels sheltered refugees during the Battles of Rimini and San Marino. After the war, the railway was abandoned in favour of the SS72 state road, San Marino Highway, and Funivia di San Marino. In 2012, an 800-metre (1⁄2-mile) section was reopened as a heritage railway in San Marino, running between Piazzale della Stazione and near Via Napoleone. The restored section comprises the original railway's final horseshoe turn through the 502-metre (1,647-foot) Montale tunnel. Despite its short operational history, the Rimini–San Marino railway retains an important place in Sammarinese culture and history, and has featured on Sammarinese postal stamps. Both the Sammarinese and Italian governments have expressed interest in reopening the...

In the early 20th century, San Marino was poorly connected to Romagna and the surrounding Italian countryside. The journey to Rimini, the nearest Italian city on the Adriatic coast, would take three hours by horse, and up to five hours by mule or ox in the winter. From 1913, an intercity bus connected Rimini with the City of San Marino in just over an hour.

In 1905, during planning for a railway line along the Marecchia valley to transport sulphur from the mines in Perticara [ it ], a hamlet near Novafeltria, to Rimini's port, San Marino indicated it would pay 50,000 lire for a station on Italian territory near its western border. Thus, in 1921, the Rimini–Novafeltria railway was extended from Verucchio to Torello, on the other side of the international border from Gualdicciolo in San Marino's west. This provided San Marino its first railway station, albeit located in Italian territory.

In 1922, under the commission of the Sammarinese government, the engineer Alberto Quartara presented plans for a railway line between Rimini and the City of San Marino. In August 1926, after an impromptu visit to San Marino while on holiday in Riccione, Benito Mussolini, Italy's dictator, suggested that a railway line could run from Rimini to Serravalle. He was persuaded by Giuliano Gozi, San Marino's de facto leader, that the line could run into the city, providing the final impetus for the railway's construction.

On 26 March 1927, the governments of Italy and San Marino signed an agreement to build a railway between the City of San Marino and Rimini. Following the conclusion of the tendering process, on 23 November 1928, its construction and operation were entrusted to the Società Veneto-Emiliana di Ferrovie e Tramvie (SVEFT), whose contract was worth 38 million lire. The railway line was designed by Filippo Tajani of the Polytechnic University of Milan.

The cost of the project was borne entirely by the Italian state, which would exclusively own the entire line for twenty-five years, after which the Sammarinese government would acquire ownership of its section. In return for building the railway, San Marino allowed the Italian government the exclusive right to install and operate a radio station on its territory for ten years. Mussolini had feared that a foreign power could install a radio station in San Marino to propagate anti-fascist propaganda.

The first stone of San Marino's railway station was laid on 3 December 1928. The project required 3,000 workers, who worked eight hours a day in three shifts of 1,000 men. Operations were managed from the elementary school in Borgo Maggiore, which housed offices and dormitories. 30 tons of dynamite and 20,000 tons of cement were used to build the railway. The section to Borgo Maggiore was completed first, followed by the section to the international border, and finally the section to Rimini. Three miners died during the construction of the Montale tunnel.

The Rimini–San Marino railway was inaugurated at Dogana 's railway station on 12 June 1932 by Constanzo Ciano, Italy's Minister for Communications. Services began the following day. At its peak, the railway line employed 24 workers. It was popular among tourists. As well as transporting passengers, the line transported salt, tobacco, and Sammarinese lire that were minted in Rome.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, during which San Marino remained neutral while Italy fought for the Axis powers, the trains were fitted with covers to dim their headlights and internal lamps. Because fuel shortages and the requisition of private vehicles reduced the availability of private travel, the railway remained popular among Rimini's residents, who could use the line to evade food rations by importing into Italy food that they exported to San Marino. As the war continued, carriages on the line were requisitioned, and the service was temporarily reduced to two trains per day to save energy. In the winter of 1942, heavy snowfall stopped the service for a week.

The railway line in Rimini's city centre was damaged by Allied aerial bombardment on 26 and 27 November 1943. Two bombs that struck the Rimini Marina depot did not detonate. From then, the route was shortened to a flagman 's booth by the Via Flaminia, which was reclassified as a stop.

On 26 June 1944, the railway was damaged by the Allied bombing of San Marino between Domagnano and Valdragone. Trains continued to run regular services between Domagnano and Rimini Colonnella until 4 July 1944. On 11 July 1944, the final locomotive and carriages were sheltered in the Cà Vir tunnel to save them from further bombings.

Even before the railway's closure, the tunnels had become shelters for refugees from Italy, with mezzanines installed to increase their capacity. An official report noted the poor breathability in an 850-metre (0.53-mile) section in Valdragone, in which 3,000 refugees sheltered. Two children died in a stampede at a tunnel in Serravalle on 6 September 1944. Meanwhile, the trains were used as hospitals, including during an outbreak of typhus in autumn 1944, after San Marino's liberation.

After the war, amid uncertainty about whether the line would be rebuilt, the railway line and rolling stock were expropriated by local residents. In 1948, the post-war Italian government declared that it was not obliged to rebuild the line as a result of the fascist regime's agreements. It was ultimately decided to replace the railway line with the SS72 state road and San Marino Highway. The Italian section was completely dismantled between 1958 and 1960. Much of the route between Rimini and Cerasolo was either turned into local roads or returned to farmland. In San Marino, the embankment between Serravalle and Domagnano was renovated into a pedestrian path through a public park, Parco Laiala.

Despite the railway's closure, it has never been officially decommissioned: a 1953 bilateral agreement between the Italian and Sammarinese governments describes the railway as "suspended" by the Second World War.

On 10 June 2011, the Associazione Treno Bianco Azzurro (White-Blue Train Association) was founded to conserve the history of the railway line and promote its reopening. Two days earlier, two convoys were extracted from inside the Montale tunnel after 68 years.

In 2012, an - 800-metre ( 1 ⁄ 2 -mile) section of the railway was restored in the City of San Marino, running from near the old station at Piazzale della Stazione to near Via Napoleone. An original Carminati & Toselli [ it ] AB-03 electromotive, which was preserved in the Montale tunnel, was taken to Rome, where it was restored and refurbished. The first tourist heritage railway ran on the restored section on 21 July 2012. The railway opens for scheduled visits and rides during holiday seasons.

The government of San Marino supports restoring the line between the City of San Marino and Borgo Maggiore. In December 2022, Federico Pedini Amati, San Marino's Secretary of State for Tourism, reiterated that restoring the line between Borgo Maggiore and San Marino was a "political obligation". By September 2023, the Sammarinese government had authorised extending the restored section into Piazzale della Stazione.

In June 2012, Stefano Vitali [ it ], President of the province of Rimini, suggested that the line could be restored using buses or trams, similar to the Trasporto Rapido Costiero. He hypothesised that it could cost up to 40 million euros. Vitali said that the reopening of the transport corridor could provide benefits to regional tourism while relieving congestion and improving road safety along the San Marino Highway, which Vitali noted was among the most dangerous in Italy. In November 2020, Rimini's municipal government suggested that the line could be restored as a cycle corridor to San Marino, especially the section that is more easily recoverable past Via Coriano on Rimini's outskirts.

On 2 September 2022, Amati and Massimo Garavaglia, Italy's Minister of Tourism, announced that their governments had begun preliminary processes to reopen the line in its entirety. It was envisaged that the first phase would reactivate the Sammarinese section, followed by the section to Cerasolo, and finally the section to Rimini. In November 2022, Italy's Ministry of Tourism made 2 million euros available for the feasibility study.

In the early 20th century, San Marino was poorly connected to Romagna and the surrounding Italian countryside. The journey to Rimini, the nearest Italian city on the Adriatic coast, would take three hours by horse, and up to five hours by mule or ox in the winter. From 1913, an intercity bus connected Rimini with the City of San Marino in just over an hour.