Trains in Italy - Venice

This post is part of a series on trains I saw and/or rode while on vacation in Italy. Start at the beginning if you like.

After a few days in Florence, it was time to move on to our final Italian stop - Venice.

Florence Station

Of course, I had to take a few photos around the train station in Florence before we left...

Lots of bustle in the Florence train station

I like the raised pantograph in this photo

En Route to Venice

Our train - a Frecciargento train

We took a Frecciargento train between Florence and Venice. Frecciargento means "silver arrow" in Italian, and these trains can reach speeds up to 250 km/hr. Zoom zoom!

My wife and I both had window seats, facing each other. I was facing backward, but that didn't really bother me. The other two seats in our little group of 4 contained two loud Russians. My wife slept much of the trip and I kept my headphones in.

I snapped a few photos along the way with my cellphone.

Meeting another Frecciargento in Bologna

I'm not sure what this structure was in Bologna - another tower, maybe - but it was impressive.

Track-straddling structure in Bologna

I spotted this EuroSprinter (Siemens ES 64) locomotive later on. It's owned by Interporto Servizi Cargo, an intermodal railway in Italy. They own their own locomotives - electric and diesel - and about a hundred well cars for carrying containers.

Interporto Servizi Cargo locomotive

I like seeing the European rolling stock - wagons - as they are very different from North American freight cars.

Empty autoracks

Check out these two different kinds of "trucks on flatcars" (TOFC):

Railway trucks on flatcars

Highway trucks on flatcars

Of course, I always have a soft spot for small diesel locomotives.

Diesels in Italy

After two hours, we were on the causeway linking Venice to the mainland. This causeway carries both road and rail traffic to the city. Transportation in Venice is by foot, or by canal. Cars and trucks arriving via this causeway can basically only drive in a small portion of the city (Santa Croce, the port area).

The Death of Venice

Cruise ships, the doom of Venice

Much has been written about how tourism is destroying Venice. The city was obviously not built for the volume of tourists that stay (4.6 million people stayed at least one night in Venice in 2016), never mind the huge number of day-trippers by bus or cruise ship. In 2015 it received 30 million visitors.

Services like Airbnb have resulted in landlords jacking up rents to force residents out, so they can sell their apartments to short-term rentals for much higher prices. This is not limited to Venice, as other cities like Barcelona have the same issue.

I don't know what the solution is. The population of Venice is shrinking, the buildings are falling apart (and sinking), and there's no end in sight. Get there while you can, before Venice turns into an unoccupied museum.

Venice's Station

The Venice train station

We stayed in a hotel near the train station - the excellent Ca' Pozzo - so we didn't have far to haul our luggage. That was good, because if you walk any distance in Venice, you're going over a bridge.

The nice thing about being near the station is that it was easy to walk over to take a few photos now and then!

Here's a few trains I saw at the train station in Venice.

Trains in the Venice station

The below two trains were interesting. Italo is a privately owned company, in direct competition with state-owned Trenitalia on the Milan-Naples and Turin-Venice routes. ÖBB is the Austrian national railway (see my Austrian railway series).

Italo and OBB trains in Venice

I liked this bilevel train too.

Bilevel train in Venice

 I ended up going to the train station two mornings to record trains.

One more train...

Something a little different

Getting Around Venice

Many boats in Venice

There are so many boats in Venice. This is to be expected, given that it's the only motorized way to get around the city, but it's still surprising to see so many of them. From vaporetti (water buses) through water taxis to gondolas, there is a lot of passenger traffic on the Grand Canal and smaller canals.

A vaporetto in Venice

These are real city buses, with schedules, electronic displays, bus passes, the whole shebang.

Vaporetto / Water bus departure board

Of course, the city needs food, water, and many other goods, and those get around in various sizes of cargo vessels.

Cargo transport in Venice

Gondolas are for tourists, not for transportation. We did take a gondola ride and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Gondolas in Venice

A Few Tourist Photos

A vaporetto passing under the Rialto bridge at night

The Rialto bridge and St. Mark's Square are well known Venice landmarks. However, I'd say the whole city is a landmark and deserves to be explored. We could honestly have spent another week in the city and not finished wandering its twisty streets and canals.

Venice from up high

I was surprised to see a Canadian connection!

A Canadian in Venice?

The most beautiful part of Venice, in our opinion, is the island of Burano. This place was picture perfect.

Burano beauty

Leaving Italy

The water bus dock at the Venice airport

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and so our visit to Italy had to end. We took a water bus from just outside our hotel to the airport. I'd say this is one of the few places in the world you can take a boat to a major airport...

After waiting in a long line to pass through Customs, we headed out to our Air Canada Rouge plane for the long flight over the Atlantic toward home.

Air Canada Rouge plane

But Wait, There's More

This isn't the end of the series, though. I have one more post to make about the trams I saw in Italy. It'll be relatively short.

Back to the start of the series

Trains in Italy - Railfanning in Riomaggiore

This post is part of a series on trains I saw and/or rode while on vacation in Italy.

After we had settled down in our hotel apartment not sure what it was for the evening, I went back out to the train station in Riomaggiore, Italy to do a little late night railfanning.

The Riomaggiore Train Station

The train station is pretty small - one two-story brick building - with two platforms, one on each side of the two tracks through the town. Both ends of the platforms end in tunnels, as the rail line between La Spezia and Levanto runs along the coast and through numerous tunnels.

The station itself has a small ticket counter, a few vending machines and a rather small waiting room. I don't know what's on the second floor but it didn't appear to be open to the public. There's a building on the opposite side of the tracks, which is just a waiting room. The two sides are connected by an underground tunnel.

Have a look at the photo below, taken late in the day of May 31.

Train station in Riomaggiore, Italy

The station is the salmon-coloured two-story building partly hidden by the tree in the foreground. The train is stopped on the platform opposite the station. Note the tunnel at the north end of the platform.

This is another view of the station area, looking north. The station is on the right.

Riomaggiore station platform

Railfanning by Night

I arrived at the station area at 21:52 and took this (shaky) photo of the arrivals board.

There were five trains due: three southbounds to La Spezia, one northbound to Levanto and another northbound all the way to Genoa. My memory is a little fuzzy on how many I saw. I definitely photographed two passenger trains and recorded one on video... as well as a few freight trains.

Green signal!

I don't claim to know Italian signaling at all, but green seems a pretty universal "train is clear to continue" signal.

I had a quick look inside the north tunnel - from the platform, thank you. It's not long. You can see from the lines on the platform that passengers are not permitted to walk through the tunnel.

This is a view looking south, showing the train station to the left and the south tunnel in the distance. The walkway from this area to the rest of the town goes over top of the south tunnel, and you'll see later that I took some photos from up there.

Riomaggiore station platform at night

Note the speed limit sign by the station - 100 / 110 / 115 km/hr! I'm not sure what the different limits are for. In Canada we have two limits, one for freight and one for passenger trains.

The First Train

Freight train on the move

The first train I saw that night was a northbound freight train, towing tank cars. It did not stop.

There was an automatic announcement that was broadcast, perhaps 30 seconds before the train arrived. It warned of an express train passing platform 2 and told people to stand back.

A snake of tank cars

Even at a shutter speed of 1/4 second, the train is a continuous blur. It's a good thing I had my tripod!

Seven minutes later, the second train arrived, and this one stopped.

The Second Train

Passenger train at night in Riomaggiore

This was a locomotive-hauled passenger train. Note the "1" and "2" on the sides of the cars indicating first and second class seating.

Passenger train at night at Riomaggiore station

That was interesting to see.

After that train departed, I left the station and went "up above" on the path so I could take an overhead shot of the station and the next train.

The Third Train

Train in Riomaggiore

Here you can see the train stopped on platform 2 in Riomaggiore.

I also recorded a few freight trains on video. You'll see them at the end of the post.

Railfanning by Day

Train board for Riomaggiore

We had tickets for the 12:57 train to La Spezia, connecting with the 13:35 train to Florence (Firenze). We got to the station at 12:10, a little early, as you can see in the display above... which meant railfan time for me! At least it was a nice day to sit and wait for our train.

First up was this graffiti-covered train, heading south. It may have been the 12:03 train, running late.

I guess the word "graffiti" IS Italian, but I don't like it

Next was another southbound passenger train, led by one of the ubiquitous E.464 locomotives.

Yet another E.464

Here's a better look at the speed limit sign on platform 1.

Italian speed limits

The third passenger train was a northbound electric multiple unit (EMU) train. Not all of these passenger trains stopped in Riomaggiore.

Heading north

The next was the northbound 12:24 train from the schedule, stopping at platform 2.

Northbound train at Riomaggiore

Next, a southbound train stopped at our platform. It was a little maddening to have trains stop, going to where we wanted to go, yet our ticket was for the 12:57 so we had to wait. In the end, it didn't really matter whether we waited in Riomaggiore or in La Spezia - we would have had to wait somewhere for our connecting train to Florence.

Geez, guys, can't you see I'm railfanning here? ;)

Here's the 12:35 train arriving in Riomaggiore... pushed by another E.464 unit.

Right on time!

Next was the 12:38 train, seen here departing north from platform 2. Note the graffiti.

So many trains through Riomaggiore!

The next train I photographed was a southbound freight train on track 1, pulled by an E.652 unit and hauling a string of what looked like covered gondolas.

Locomotive E652 050 southbound through Riomaggiore

The tail end of the southbound freight train through Cinque Terre

Finally, our train showed up, right on time, ending a very fruitful Italian railfanning session.

The 12:57 - let's go!

Here's the video I took at night and the next day.


On to Florence!