Italy’s most important north-south rail artery will be severely tested this week as Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI) lifts into place the 1,800-tonne steel deck of the new Ponte al Pino viaduct. From 23:00 on Sunday 26 July until 11:00 on Thursday 30 July, all tracks that cross the eastern side of Florence will be taken out of service. High-speed Frecciarossa and Italo trains linking Turin, Milan, Venice, Verona and Bologna with Rome, Naples and Reggio Calabria will be routed along the slower Tirrenica coast line, adding up to three hours to journey times and forcing dozens of cancellations. Intercity night trains and regional services are also affected. The closure is the second of three “mega-windows” planned for 2026. A first ten-day blockade earlier in July allowed demolition of the century-old bridge and preparatory works. During the current window engineers will rotate a pre-assembled span into position using a giant crawler crane—an operation RFI describes as “one of the most complex pieces of civil engineering carried out in the city in decades”. A final three-day possession in late August will complete track realignment and signalling before the bridge re-opens fully to rail traffic. To keep Florence moving, Trenitalia has organised a fleet of 75 coaches shuttling every 15 minutes between Santa Maria Novella (SMN) and Campo di Marte stations so that passengers can bypass the break in the tracks. The national operator has also advised business travellers to consider daytime Intercity services via Pisa or Rimini, or to switch to flights where practical. Airlines serving Pisa, Bologna and Florence Amerigo Vespucci report a spike in last-minute bookings for 29 and 30 July. Corporate mobility managers should warn assignees that through-tickets will not be honoured on replacement buses; separate domestic tickets must be purchased. Trenitalia and Italo have activated fee-free re-booking and refund policies, but only for travel wholly within the affected 26-30 July window. Travellers with tight connections to Eurostar, ÖBB Nightjet or intercontinental flights should build in at least four extra hours and monitor real-time updates on the Trenitalia app and RFI station boards. Looking ahead, the ministry of transport says the lessons learned in Florence will inform similar bridge-replacement projects planned for the Bologna and Naples nodes in 2027. Employers with large mobile workforces in Italy may want to map alternative routing scenarios now, as repeated long-duration closures of key junctions are expected to be a feature of Italy’s rail modernisation programme through the decade.
Source: Trenitalia & ANSA
