The Alessandria Smistamento railway terminal, which is located 83 kilometres north of Genoa in north-eastern Italy, is going to be elevated as a key intermodal hub across the TEN-T Rhine Alpine Corridor.
The planned enhancement includes letting the hub handle 750-metre trains to push intermodality between France and Italy. The Alessandria Smistamento railway terminal is strategically located so that it can be operated as a dry port for the volumes that come to the Genoa port. Apparently, the volumes at the Ligurian port are expected to surge because of the opening of the Genoa-Tortona high-speed rail. The new line will also enable to get connected to Alessandria, because of which the hub can help provide more capacity on the route.
The overall investment for the project is expected to be 75 million euros, as underscored by the Ministry of Transport in Italy. It is anticipated that the 7.5 million euros will come from the Italian Budget Law of 2018. Another 15 million euros will come from the shared project that was brought into existence in 2016 to create the Piedmont area crossed by Terzo Valico.
The plan to remodel the Alessandria Smistamento railway terminal was brought into existence by the special commissioner of the Terzo Valico project, Calogero Mauceri, last year in June. The new intermodal hub, hence, should be equipped when it comes to the opening of the Terzo Valico, which is scheduled to start in the beginning of 2025.
It is well to be noted that last week, a MoU was inked to officially begin the project. The MoU comes in two phases. In the first phase, which is expected to end this year by December, one of the managers of Italian infrastructure will look into the feasibility studies. Throughout the entire process, all the technical as well as economic factors will be looked at, and at the end of the phase, a plan with work specifics as well as the costs will be made available. The second phase, on the other hand, will take into account the masterplan preparation for the realisation of the novel intermodal hub.
As per the Ports of Genoa, the hub is going to mostly serve the Savona as well as Genoa ports. Alessandria will happen to be a major junction connected to the Turin-Lyon rail that would get open by 2032. Upgrading the Alessandria-Smistamento railway area is therefore a significant step when it comes to the development of the Mediterranean corridor as well as the Rhine-Alpine corridor.
