The Story

 Unfortunately once again it will be a war, the second world war, to decide the destiny of the marble railway of Carrara as it decided irreparably the story of many families and countries. The rail traffic went on up to June 1944 when it was completely interrupted both because the German troops were aware that many partisan forces were hidden among the steep slopes of the Apuan Alps and their gorges and also because the military operations had irreparably damaged many tracts of the railway. In particular the bombings and the mines destroyed most of the railway and pratically all the buildings. The transport of the marbles from the station of San Martino to Avenza coild start again only in March 1946 when they finished to rebuild the bridge of Boccalone which had been destroyed with other two bridges along the plain tract by the bombings.However the destiny of the railway was settled. In the years after the war there was a lot of labour disputes : the marble workers wanted the same wages of the other employees of the marble sector. Moreover there was a continuous clash of interests among the commune of Carrara, the Marmifera society and many other competitors for the control of the activities. At the same time the means of transport by road increased considerably the volume of transport of the marble blocks because of the improvements in the roads and in the lorries.

 The attempt of modernization of the railway with the introduction of diesel locomotives but without the use of continuous brakes didn’t bring the desidered fruits, as the high number of workers necessary for the braking and the costs resulting from the still existing obligations linked to the surviving " lizzature" and transfers didn’t allow to reduce the gap more and more considerable between the costs for tha maintainance of rail transport and those necessary for road transport. In1961 the traffic on the " Marmifera Railway "was fallen to only 160,000 tons. Fron February 1964 the commune of Carrara and the society prepared a plan for the progressive transformation of the railways into roads apt to transport marble by lorries.The railway service finished definitively in August 1964 when the dismantlement of the structure arrived at the station Carrara S.Martino. By the end of 1964, with incredible rapidity the dismantlement of the tract Avenza-Marina was completed. All the plants were dismantled by February 1969. In such a way a cultural and technical ligacy known and admired all over the world was completely destroyed in few years. If we exclude the wonderful Vara bridges which are now used together with few others as roads, the only things remaining of the Ferrovia Marmifera of Carrara are old neglected ruins and bridges full of weeds and creeping, symbols of a period full of dreams and hopes.

Il Comune di Carrara | La Provincia | La Regione Toscana

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