Dolomitenbahn

[Vern]

Happened upon this when scouting for potential route ideas:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolomitenbahn (German language page).

The photos via some of the links at the bottom of the page show this must have been an awesomely spectacular route. Electric era of operation looks similar to the RhB Tirano Line but if anything through far grander scenery. Some of those mountain peaks towering over the line are nearly vertical.

It's a tragedy the line died in the mid-60's as I'm sure it would have been a massive tourist attraction had it hung on to the current day, not to mention serving the town of Cortina.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has attempted this route in any of the major sims but it would certainly make for a wild ride!

 

[JCitron]

That's quite a route, Vern. I followed it in Bing Maps for quite a distance but the ROW disappears in a few places and has been ploughed over by a freeway, while in others it's a blank path. In the 1960s and 1970s the attitudes were different towards railroads overall, however the route today probably would have been active give how the interest in railways in Europe has become the in-thing today.

I agree this would make quite a route in Trainz perhaps in the same category as Roy's Canadian Rockies routes.

John

 

[Vern]

Any attempt at the route will have to include an Easter Egg of the Pink Panther, though. I knew the name of Cortina seemed vaguely familiar and a bit more research revealed that a good part of the original 1963 movie was shot there. I'm now going to have to watch it again to see if the railway features at all.

Certainly got the fingers itching more than usual!

 

[teddytoot]

Off topic but seeing the name Carina reminded me. Cortina was used as the name of Ford's very successful UK family car of the 1960s-70s. There is a lovely story that when they were discussing the name for a new model (the Fiesta I think) it was suggested that they use another ski resort name. Bob Lutz, the Executive Vice-President with a straight face suggested Garmisch-Partenkirchen! Incidentally the full name of Cortina is Cortina d'Ampezzo so perhaps we could have had a Ford Garmisch.

 

[clam1952]

From a quick look on the web it looks as if some of it may be a cycle path? Looks like an interesting project.

 

[Pendolino]

If I remember correctly, there is a very brief appearance of the train in the original Pink Panther movie. I have been unable to find videos taken on the Dolomiti railway: this is the closing sequence of a 1959 Italian movie, which shows a train departing from Cortina.

This web page (in Italian, but Google translate should help) is dedicated to the railway and contains many pictures of the route. One consist, built in the late '50s (it is the one you can see in the above linked video) was purchased by the Trento-Malé railway and has been used until a few years ago. It still exists, and there are plans to return it to its original condition.

 

[Vern]

Yes conversion to cycle/walking routes is a huge assist when mapping out the course of an abandoned railway.

There are also some 1:50000 historic topo maps in the Perry Castaneda library which clearly show the route, albeit despite being US military maps these are in some odd projection (based on Rome) which doesn't correlate to any of the defaults in Transdem.

What isn't so apparent are clear track diagrams of the various stations so any attempt is going to have to rely on photographs and a degree of imagination. Of course if one is projecting the route survived to present day then track formations are likely to have changed or been rationalised, etc. It's the setting which is more important with a route like this!