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Nel filmato, tratto da YouTube, la locomotiva a vapore che percorre per il collaudo i binari della Ferrovia Vaticana nel marzo 1932.
La costruzione della ferrovia era stata prevista nel Trattato del Laterano, firmato in Roma l’11 febbraio 1929 between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy, which provided art. 6 that Italy should build a train station inside the Vatican City and joined the Italian railway network, connecting to close Roma-San Pietro station.
The railway starts from the axis of the passenger building at Roma-San Pietro, Via Gregorio VII crosses the viaduct of Jasmine, 8 arches and 143 meters long, and makes entry into the Vatican City through an elliptical arc with light of 16.70 meters from a closed iron gate with two sliding doors weighing 35 tons. Then reaches to just over 20 meters from the arch at the entrance, the building travelers on a project built. Joseph Momo, trusted architect of Pope Pius XI.
by Pius XI to now, the railroad has disposed of almost exclusively a decent rail freight traffic but in recent years has decreased significantly, replaced by road. Only occasionally the railway was used to meet a passenger.
The entire infrastructure, suitably extended and electrified, while maintaining unchanged the characteristics of the railway could be used for the activation of a tram service between the station of Roma-San Pietro and the Vatican Museums, which now dominate the panorama of international museums from their 4 million of visitors per year.
The tramway would open a second entrance to the Museum, located on the opposite side to that currently exists on Viale Vaticano, by now chronically congested queues, which in a few days of the year reach up to 600 meters, until Piazza Risorgimento and beyond on Via di Porta Angelica, equivalent to more than 5,000 visitors to the queue.
The second access could be located next to the train Roma-San Pietro, where for the Great Jubilee of 2000 was built the so-called "Atrium", also known as "Terminal St. Peter's Eng. Marchetti Rossi, a meeting place for pilgrims who wanted to grow from year to train, hurriedly dismantled after the event, without be able to find alternative employment.
The location of the entrance at the Roma-San Pietro station would also allow the interchange between the tram lines and regional FR3 (Cesano-Roma Ostiense) and FR5 (Roma Termini to Civitavecchia) and also with the subway, using the same cover for the Rome-San Pietro / Valle Aurelia (1,200 m).
The tramway, railway gauge (1,435 mm), after having committed the facilities of the Railroad Vatican (restored the second track on the viaduct of Jasmine) abandon them after the Vatican station with a via connection to the ETIP Seminar e quindi su via dell'Osservatorio, consentendo ai visitatori di godere, prima della visita ai Musei, dello stupendo panorama floreale ed architettonico offerto dai Giardini Vaticani.
La tramvia, tutta a doppio binario (tranne nei tratti che non lo consentissero, ove si potrebbe adottare quello interlacciato), dopo aver lasciato la via del Giardino Quadrato, raggiungerebbe il capolinea tronco posto nello Stradone dei Giardini, proprio a ridosso dei Musei, con una lunghezza complessiva della tratta, da capolinea a capolinea, di circa 1.500 metri, che poterebbero essere coperti ad una velocità media di 10 km/h in circa 10 minuti di tragitto senza alcuna fermata intermedia.
Per l’alimentazione della tramvia si potrebbe adopt a mixed system, with airline and wireless, as delivery systems TramWave (of Ansaldobreda) or APS (Alstom) or Primove (Bombardier) . The mixed system would be to limit the environmental impact costs, if you adopt an all wireless solution.
The wireless solution could be used only to overcome the main entrance and the area of \u200b\u200breconciliation between the Vatican and the station is across the gardens, and for this we could influence to a very simple and pleasant, similar to that of Tramway Rittner, consisting of wooden poles with horizontal suspension characteristics metallic arc.
The trucks used on the tramway could be currently available on the international market, about 35 meters long, two-way with a total capacity of 250 passengers on the train. With a frequency shift of about 5 minutes, the overall system capacity would be around 3,000 passengers per hour per direction, more than enough to eliminate any type of tail on a day of average flow.
With this configuration, the fleet of rolling stock should amount to 7 trucks (6 intended to serve as a reserve). The deposit for accommodation and factory repair of rolling stock could be obtained in the tunnel, currently used as a spindle for the railroad, suitably extended.
The estimated investment for the project, the current costs, would cost roughly about 30 million €.
