European Railroad Discussion > When in Rome - Freight at Trastevere 9/21/24

From where I was coming, a taxi was the only logical way to get to the Trastevere station. Wound up having a nice chat with the cabbie, who when I told him why I was going to the train station told me that the freight all runs at night. Luckily he was wrong, although the only two freights I caught both appeared within minutes of my arrival and of each other. Had I gotten there 15 minutes later, I would have spent my two hours confirming that the cabbie was right.

Not knowing the lay of the land, and being a station with multiple platforms (so if you're on the wrong platform, you're not getting a photo), I did a quick map study and decided on the platform that seemed most likely to allow access to freight yards down those lines. Luckily, I chose correctly.

Image one - An westbound FS Mercitalia Rail train made up of sliding wall boxcars is led through the Trastevere-Roma suburban station behind a tagged E652 Tigre.

Image two - An FS Mercitalia Rail eastbound freight train of sliding wall boxcars comes to a stop at the signal at Trastevere-Roma. Power for this trains was an E494 TRAXX DC3. As they waited, I grabbed a lot of photos, amusing the crew. I yelled up, "American," and they laughed and waved as if that explained my actions.

---

---

I applaud your quest to photograph freight trains in the passenger train heavy Italian rail network. I appreciate the additional information about the locomotives, equipment and destinations you add to the photographs. Is there a particular source that you use for this information. Great photos in your whole series makes me want to plan a trip. I really like number 2 in this post with the classic architecture in the background. 
Do you know why the rail in Italy is painted white?

MP184 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Do you know why the rail in Italy is painted
> white?

Cannot testify in court to the validity of this answer, but I was told by someone that it was because it makes it easier to see cracks in the rail under inspection. I told him that seems counterintuative, paint would cover cracks. He said it's light paint and shows everything. More research may be necessary.

Regarding the information - just lots of internet digging. Sometimes have to use Google translate.

MP184 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I applaud your quest to photograph freight trains
> in the passenger train heavy Italian rail network.
> I appreciate the additional information about the
> locomotives, equipment and destinations you add to
> the photographs. Is there a particular source that
> you use for this information. Great photos in your
> whole series makes me want to plan a trip. I
> really like number 2 in this post with the classic
> architecture in the background. 
> Do you know why the rail in Italy is painted
> white?

The white paint is to reduce the heating of the
rail by the sun.

Heat abatement was my first thought but the Cinque Terre coast line, Venice or Tirano, are among the tracks where I saw the white rails, and would not seem to be the most heat challenged track locations. The white rails are present inside in the tunnels in Cinque Terre and under canopy of the Milano station as well. If white rails were a successful technique in preventing heat related issues you would think BNSF and UP would use white rails on the Needles and Yuma subdivisions two of the many US lines with potential rail heat related issues. The practice seems to be reserved for main lines as yard tracks and other secondary tracks did not have white rails. I agree that painting would seem to be counterproductive to revealing defects. Also, I can't imagine visually inspecting 2 sides of 2 rails times 2 in double track territory for hundreds of miles would be the most effective defect detection solution. I assume a higher tech solution is the primary form of defect detection.
1. White rails extend into the tunnel at Riomaggiore.
2. No white rails visible in this image of secondary tracks near Carrara.
3.White rails extend to the bumpers in Milano Central station under the canopy.

---

---

---