Bologna–Florence railway
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The Bologna–Florence railway is one of the major links in the Italian rail network, connecting the railways of the Po Valley with the railways of Tuscany and central Italy under the Apennines. It is also known as the Bologna–Florence Direttissima—"direttissima" is Italian for "most direct". It was Italy's greatest engineering achievement in the first half of the twentieth century. When it opened in 1934 it significantly shortened the old winding Porrettana line over the Apennines via Pistoia, and was made possible by the 18.507 km-long Apennine Base Tunnel. The new Bologna–Florence high-speed railway was opened on 5 December 2009; it includes 73.8 km of tunnels in its 78.5 km length.
The Porrettana line was opened across the Apennines between Bologna and Florence via Pistoia and Prato in November 1864 to connect the trunk railway of the Po Valley (the Milan–Bologna and the Bologna–Ancona railways, completed in 1861) with the railways of Tuscany. Florence was finally connected by rail with Rome via Perugia in 1866. The Porrettana line was immediately successful but while it was a significant engineering achievement it soon became clear that it was inadequate to cater for the traffic attempting to use it. In particular, it was a single track line, with steep gradients and its Apennine tunnel was built on a steep slope causing climbing steam trains to generate suffocating smoke, even when extra ventilation shafts and fans were eventually installed.
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