Finally SFM

Strade Ferrate del Mediterraneo. A ranting name for a young society leaning in the italian scenario of railway trasportation. SFM remember indeed the famous acronym of the society which operated 1.150km of lines from 1865 to 1885 as "Strade Ferrate Meridionali" and then again the mythic RM - Rete Mediterranea (officially Soc. Italiana Strade Ferrate del Mediterraneo) which from 1885 to 1905 was in direct competition with RA - Rete Adriatica, a firm born partially from ancient SFM. With a so famous past, all of us were waiting a fast and heavy start of services for this new italian operator. Instead, lost in certification runs, test runs and other trials, the departure of SFM locos on RFI rails has been slow and complicated. The firm - born as a branch of vanished RailItaly - has its head office in a building inside Alessandria humping yard, where also are recoverated the two only locos owned: a D.752 and a G.2000 Vossloh. The first one is D.752.509, arrived in May 2003 from Leon D'Oro importer from Czech. This unit has been heavily used since June 2003 on school runs for SFM engine men, new workers and former FS ones. With the same loco in July 2003 was made a freight made up of Eaos cars along lines around Novara. G.2000, labeled 03, is arrived later in the depot and initially completely lacking of any type of labeling or logo. After all these initial works all has come to a stop, waiting developments and - except for some test runs to certificate the G.2000 - nothing happened. But finally this summer a first articulated service has started. In alternate days, SFM has been charged from FS Cargo to pull freights numbers 94105/94106, 94107/94108 e 94109/94110 from 28 July to 9 August. SFM locos hauled top and tailing a consist of 10/12 ancient hoppers (built in 60's exclusively to load cereals) from the Savona P.Doria yard, departing at 4.16 am. From there to Genova Sampierdarena and then up to Arquata on the steep Giovi old line. In Ronco a stop of 100 minutes was provided, make the train arriving in Arquata at 7.36. From there they had a short diversion on the line to Milano until Cassano Spinola, with the arrival fixed at 8.00. Once arrived, the train was shuntd on the third track. The tailing loco - always the D.752 - was uncoupled and left there. The G.2000 moved groups of 5 wagons on a yard track, ready to be shunted by the little loco of the industrial link of the "cereal unloading", an old white Krauss Maffei built in 1960. The moves to unload by gravity the cars are a slow matter, so the departure of our train (again 10/12 cars top and tailed) can take place only around 12.15, after other shuntin activity. In 15 minutes it arrived to Arquata, where the crew had to change cab and direction, being the train now bound to Alessandria, where it was parked in SFM area all the night long. The returning leg was on the day before, sometimes even on Sundays, with departure at 17.00 and arrival in Savona at 19.44. However this service is ended on August 9 and after the summer pause it shall return under FS Cargo management, with their D.145 from Genova depot. Now we all are waiting next SFM news, after the big one received some weeks ago: DB Cargo division Railion has taken over the 95% of SFM, in foresight of acquire market shares in the new freight italian panorama.

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