ABSTRACT
The new Messina-Catania-Palermo railway line is the Southern section of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Core Corridor of the Trans-European Networks-Transport. This alignment, located in Sicily (Italy), has an overall length of 240 km from Giampilieri (Messina) to Fiumetorto (Palermo) crossing known tourist destinations as the coast cities of Taormina and Catania and inland cities as Enna and Caltanissetta.
The project represents one of the major infrastructural investments of the Italian State Railways for the incoming decade (about 10 billion euro) aiming to bring to Sicily an efficient railway system and to partially convert the existent railway line (built in the 19th century) as green ways.
The planning phase focused on the issue of reducing impact on urbanized areas and of facing difficult geomorphological features, thus the alignment is manly located underground with 50% of its total length constituted by tunnels.
Moreover, according to the “Technical Specifications for Interoperability” European regulation for safety in case of single track railway tunnels, safety underground works were planned also with the aim of guaranteeing a sustainable development and exploitation of the infrastructure in the future.
