Minister Graziano del Rio, in an interview with Corriere della Sera on the 29th of this month, caused a real and unexpected thunderbolt to strike: to have goods trains pass on the rails of the high-speed railway too. They should flow on the Italian network from southern to central Europe during the night hours when Frecce Rosse and Italo are both stopped. Del Rio's slogan is simple, if revolutionary: "Merci by night to win the tender with Rotterdam"
The start of the first convoys is scheduled for 2018 and should revolutionize the goods transport system of the entire peninsula.
If the project keeps its promises, it could become a backlash for most of the difficulties that the major companies have always encountered, put in place by the various Italian governments for the development of the South, from the iron and steel industry in Puglia, to oil refining in Sicily, to car production chains in central Italy.
All realities that, one after the other, entered the crisis due to a lack of funds in the industrial development projects of the seventies: the cost of transport. A missed choice from which the large industrial complexes suffer and which has however become a paradigm for the continuous difficulties of survival of the Ilva of Taranto (not to mention its murderous management for those who live and work in the steel plant, one of the few left in Europe)
But let's get to the point. In the first week of distant 1981, the Government of the time passed one of the many decrees to relaunch national steel. At that date the debts of the (then public) steel industry exceeded 700 billion lire, not to mention an even blacker end of the year taking into account the transport costs of Italian steel.
An example for all. Fiat at the time, and we are still at the beginning of 1981, after having focused on Taranto, slowly began to stock up on steel for its cars from the French steel plant of Fos sur Mere, behind Marseilles. The transport costs from Mediterranean France to Turin were significantly lower than those to be paid to get from Puglia to Piedmont.
1981 was a bad year for Taranto. The first steel company in the world, the Japanese Nippon Steel, was called by Italsider to lend a hand to what was considered the best in Europe with the Taranto plant. Not everything, however, worked at its best. In fact, a group of 100 experts arrived from Japan who stayed in Italy, in turn, for 18 months. The estimated cost for the Japanese aid was around 25 billion lire. The Italian managers hoped to convince Nippon Steel to cut costs, perhaps with a shareholding to be agreed upon. Since then, Nippon has preferred to cash in immediately.
SECURITY UPDATE TRAINING
“Goods travel mainly by road – Delrio said today on the sidelines of the 11th edition of the world congress of railway research Wcrr –, the goal is to move at least 30% in a few years by increasing transport by rail. This will be done by upgrading technology and logistical connections. The country is committed to this project which means less pollution and more investment. We need to act on two elements: the renewal of the rolling stock by paying more attention to customers and more attention to regional transport".
