028 Chiasso, the Italian border - REOS full DVD

The railways at Chiasso, on the Swiss/Italian border, consist of
many sorting yards to deal with the volume and variety of freight
and passenger trains arriving and departing daily. On track one,
the overhead power can be switched from the Italian supply of
3000V DC to the Swiss 15000V AC. Trains arriving from Italy
enter the station with their pantographs lowered.
We start at the South end of the station platform looking towards
Italy. We witness passenger trains exchanging locos, whilst freight
trains arrive from and depart to Italy.
We visit the three marshalling yards, which cater for the
different activities in handling freight trains at the border. The
southern yard deals with freight wagons which are held for longer
periods, the western “arrivals yard” is used to exchange motive
power for trains continuing to Switzerland, whilst the middle
“shunting yard” carries out marshalling of wagons to make new
consists. Trains bound for Italy are hauled from the “arrivals
yard” to Chiasso station by INFRA diesels. The centre of the
return loop houses large goods sheds connected by platforms.
A steeply graded single track curve connects the “arrivals yard”
to the Gotthard line.
With “open access”, we witness new train operating companies:
IF Cargo, Railion and Rail4Chem. This adds to the variety of
the footage.
Detailed maps are inserted between the scenes to identify
camera positions.We only use original soundrecordings, without any
additinonal music or commentary.
Filmed in January 2005. Running time 81 minutes.