Istalia

[XanderOne]

SIF completes the High Speed Network: the new Castiell 'e Sciorenza station inaugurated

But discontent in Alaria continues to grow: local authorities denounce that the Peninsula remains at the center of national priorities and not even the reassurances of Minister Martini on the "Program Sea" seem to be able to appease the concerns

The new high-speed station in the heart of Castiell 'e Sciorenza

April 5644

CASTIELL 'E SCIORENZA — With a solemn ceremony in the presence of the Grand Prince of the Crown Tommaso and the Minister of Economy, National Industry and Transport Carola Martini, the new high-speed station of Castiell 'e Sciorenza was officially inaugurated, a symbolic step in the completion of the vast restructuring and modernization work of the Istalian high-speed railway network conducted by SIF, Railway Infrastructure Company, controlled by GFS, State Railways Group, the state holding which also controls SFNI, Istalian National Railways Company. The futuristic station in the heart of the city was built almost entirely underground to reach the tunnels dug under the city to allow the new high-speed line to reach the city centre.

After years of intense work, partly on historic routes and partly on new routes completely built from scratch, the entire network connecting the main cities of the Peninsula is now fully operational. The new routes, many of which are developed on elevated overpasses designed to ensure efficiency and minimal environmental impact, have been equipped with the most advanced railway technologies and are fully compatible with the new generation high-speed trains.

The latter are being built by COMFERIS, Istalian Railway Material Consortium, created eleven years ago and formed by a strategic alliance of the companies AUDISS-Leonardi Industrie Meccaniche, Industrie Nepoli-Manavia, Alfer, Anonima Tecnica Misseniana and ATIB. Just two months ago, COMFERIS and SFNI presented the first model of the new generation: the ETAV-5600, an electric multiple unit capable of achieving unprecedented performance and comfort levels in national rail transport, capable of reaching speeds of up to 360 km/h, although this will be limited to portions of the Romula-Milona and Romula-Burìa-Terebbìa routes, while the national average speed should be around 300 km/h.

During his speech, the CEO of SIF announced that work on the Alaria railway infrastructure will begin in the coming months and be completed in ten years. However, despite the promise, discontent is growing on the island: several Alarian parliamentarians, in fact, have raised their voices, opening intense debates within the National Congress, complaining about a chronic lack of infrastructure priorities on the island. The increasingly widespread fear is that the Peninsula will continue to catalyze resources and attention to the detriment of Alaria, penalized since the time of the Seventh Republic by internal migratory flows due to an increasingly fragile productive fabric.

Answering journalists' questions, Minister Carola Martini reiterated that the Government is determined to reverse the trend:

We are defining the "Program Sea", a strategic investment plan that will directly concern Alaria, with the modernization of the main ports and a significant strengthening of the connection infrastructures between the island and the Peninsula.

And yet, the Government's words do not seem to be enough to appease the demands of the territory: the local authorities insist on a real and structural industrial relaunch, which is not limited to Estal alone, already the subject of past announcements, but which aims to locate a significant part of the new national refining and transformation industry of strategic materials precisely in Alaria.

In addition to the industrial demands, there are also those of the food and wine and agricultural sectors, particularly in the south of the island, where the large agri-food state companies that arose under the Socialist Republic were decommissioned during the post-war reconstruction and replaced by huge private estates oriented towards intensive monoculture. The large public companies first and the estates now have had a negative impact on production diversification and, in many cases, on the quality and fertility of the land.

According to many observers and academics, what is emerging is an “Island Question”, a new expression that indicates the growing socio-economic gap between the Peninsula and the Island. A theme that is set to become central to the political debate in the coming years and that the institutions can no longer afford to postpone.
The island MP Anton Bressan, exponent of the Alliance of Autonomies, declared in the Congress and reiterated to journalists:

The time has come to guarantee Alaria what it deserves: Infrastructure, industry, work, and respect!