The Malmo - Palermo Express

[Schweir]

Interesting article here: https://www.economist.com/news/euro...europes-north-and-south-two-giant-engineering

The centrepiece of this strategy is the “Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor” from Sweden and Finland, through Denmark, Germany, Austria and Italy to Malta in the south. This programme—jointly funded by the EU and member states—includes railway electrification, port modernisation and the two largest engineering projects on the continent.

The greatest progress has been at the route’s northern end. The Oresund link, a 16km road-and-rail, bridge-and-tunnel link from Malmo to Copenhagen that opened in 2000, has knitted the two cities into one region. The next step is to link them to Hamburg with a tunnel bearing two train tracks and a four-lane highway under the Fehmarn Strait (“Fehmarnbelt” in German), explains Lars Friis Cornett, deputy director of the forthcoming Fehmarnbelt project, soon to be the biggest construction site on the continent. This would create a new regional economy dubbed “STRING”.

With associated road and rail improvements it will cut the Hamburg-Copenhagen train ride to two hours, 40 minutes...

Would you use this train?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The TEN network is mostly about freight, and the missing links are currently very inefficient.
Passenger-wise, it would radically improve Stockholm/Copenhagen-Berlin and Munich-Milan/Venice.
Beyond Naples is a backwater and a domestic Italian issue really.

 

[Iskra]

The TEN network is mostly about freight, and the missing links are currently very inefficient.
Passenger-wise, it would radically improve Stockholm/Copenhagen-Berlin and Munich-Milan/Venice.
Beyond Naples is a backwater and a domestic Italian issue really.

It's got a very lucrative tourist trade Napoli-Sicily and the trains are always full when I use it, the ferries are popular too and the roads are busy despite being hell to drive on, so there is a market IMO.

I don't think anyone actually wants a bridge across the straits of Messina though it would put a lot of people out of work and cause problems for the busy shipping lanes. There are also problems with public/EU money being laundered when it comes to big projects in this area, sadly.

 

[duesselmartin]

It's got a very lucrative tourist trade Napoli-Sicily and the trains are always full when I use it, the ferries are popular too and the roads are busy despite being hell to drive on, so there is a market IMO.

I don't think anyone actually wants a bridge across the straits of Messina though it would put a lot of people out of work and cause problems for the busy shipping lanes. There are also problems with public/EU money being laundered when it comes to big projects in this area, sadly.

I don't doubt the trains have been busy, but I doubt their were lucrative. The only possible revival of night trains could be over high speed lines to make those distances over night.
As to the Straights of Messina, that bridge is prosposed for decades. The best hope is for the Fehrmannbelt crossing linking Germany's Fehrmann island with Denmark's Lolland.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It's got a very lucrative tourist trade Napoli-Sicily and the trains are always full when I use it, the ferries are popular too and the roads are busy despite being hell to drive on, so there is a market IMO.
I don't think anyone actually wants a bridge across the straits of Messina though it would put a lot of people out of work and cause problems for the busy shipping lanes. There are also problems with public/EU money being laundered when it comes to big projects in this area, sadly.

Not to mention seismic problems in the area - Messina has been destroyed by earthquakes before!
I don't doubt the trains to Siclly are well used (I was on one last year), but the service is incredibly sparse and the ferries/connections have very low productivity.
A fast line from Naples (Salerno) would be very expensive through all the mountains.
By "backwater" I mean there is no cross-border element for the EU to fund, unlike Baltic or trans-Alpine links.

 

[dutchflyer]

1.It's got a very lucrative tourist trade Napoli-Sicily and the trains are always full when I use it, the ferries are popular too and the roads are busy despite being hell to drive on, so there is a market IMO.
2.I don't think anyone actually wants a bridge across the straits of Messina though it would put a lot of people out of work and cause problems for the busy shipping lanes. There are also problems with public/EU money being laundered when it comes to big projects in this area, sadly.

@1. that more likely due to many fewer trains now running across. Most tourists to Sicily come from the North of Eurpe and fly in.
@2.same could be said-and was said many times- before the Chunnel was built.

 

[duesselmartin]

@1. that more likely due to many fewer trains now running across. Most tourists to Sicily come from the North of Eurpe and fly in.
@2.same could be said-and was said many times- before the Chunnel was built.

@2. The Channel tunnel was so expensive that it is unlikely to be repeated under the same financing model. Also Seismic activity is stronger in the Mezzogiorno/Sicilly than in the English Channel.