First High Velocity Milano-Bologna line dockyards

Phototale from working plants

	The first HV plant with railway operations has been the Piacenza Le Mose one, opened in January 2003 to collect and stock ballast and ties, waiting future operations of track laying on the HV new line. The shunting work has been made by the V.216 K.055 owned by Serfer, fresh in its new livery  after an overhaul taken place in Udine and some other services on industrial links always played by the Genova' society. The switch linking the yard to the line Piacenza-Cremona is along the line near the yard of Ikea factory. The materials trains arrived from various locations to Piacenza, from where only in night hours they reach the switch above mentioned. Here the V.216 took care of the loaded cars (long strings of VFaccs or Faccs wagons) shunting them along the tracks ready to be unloaded with caterpillars. Activity on this plant is ceased on March 2004, now resting dormant until new works will take place on the HV line. By then other operators will use the material to lay down trackage platform and tracks.
	The second HV plant is that one near Soliera, opened in summer of 2003, where the yard is departing from a switch placed along the Modena-Mantova line, shortly north Soliera station. Even here the activities - still in progress - is played by Serfer, which dislocated here the V.216 K.155, also overhauled in Udine shops. The working course is the same of Le Mose plant, to pile and accumulate ballast and ties. In this case train of VFaccs cars arrive in Modena from Bologna again in night hours trailed by a pair of D.345. In other cases the ballast arrive here notless than from Giuncarico (GR) with two dedicated trains (56324 and 56326) reaching Modena. Even here all activities are nocturnal and are actually about to end in prevision of the second working phase: track laying.
	The third HV plant has been created in March 2004  and has been dormant until April 2nd, when again a Serfer loco was pushed there with a shunting movement made by a 245. It's located near Ospedaletto Lodigiano and the switch letting to access in is placed along the line Pavia-Codogno, right before the station of Ospedaletto. The target is again stocking of ballast and ties. Ties arrive on trucks, while ballast is carried here on dedicated trains from Roncafort (TN).
	From Roncafort (Trento freight yard) the ballast arrives mon-fri on the train 92015 until Milano and from there with the 91317 until Casalpusterlengo, some time being pulled by new E.405s. From Casalpusterlengo, headed by a D.343 arrived from Cremona depot in the meantime, wagons reach Ospedaletto with the freight 91318. Here the train is rapidly turned and then conducted to the switch. Only on mon/tue/thu there is another freight again from Roncafort (92013) which - arriving itself also in Casalpusterlengo - make need of another trip on dieselized line to Ospedaletto. So, after years of complete silence in this sense, the Pavia-Codogno trackage see 4 freight trains in a single day!
	After shunted the train, the D.343 trails the cars until the switch. Then it push them along the grades linked to the FS line, ready to be moved in the yard by the Serfer loco, a former DB unit. The D.343 sometimes take away empty car immediately, other times instead it goes back to Casalpusterlengo light, to carry the other ballast consist to the HV yard. The difference more evident respect other working plants is the completely daylight operations, due to the nocturnal closure of the Pavia-Codogno line.
	After taken in charge the train, the Serfer loco provide to shunt group of loaded cars on long tracks of the yard, where some unload points are provided, always with caterpillars. A nice photo opportunity is at the beginning of the yard, where the tracks have to cross a little masted road to a typical farm. Continuos push-pull movements of trains could be really disturbing for inhabitants, fortunately all these activities are concentrated in some morning hours and overall it will cease when new HV line will be ready.
	The shunt dead track of the yard goes to end in a large curve, already layed in direction of the future HV line, along the Milano-Bologna highway. In this way it will be ready in short time a link to carry working trains from the FS network to the new line. V.216 here is shunting a long string of ballast cars, with big effort of engines. Due to low velocity of these movements, many dust and dirt depositated on air stacks can cause this black show, quite similar to a steam loco under stress!