Ferrovia Circumetnea: Why Sicily Built A Railway Up An Active Volcano 🌋
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- The Ferrovia Circumetnea is a very quaint, 120-year-old narrow-gauge railway with an unusual selling point: it goes up an active volcano. The biggest active volcano in Europe, in fact - the mighty Mount Etna. I went to Sicily to find out more...
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I really like your videos. They are short, to the point and show interesting corners of Europe. Your narration is amusing and informative. I appreciate that you have the camera pointed at the surroundings and not at yourself as many You Tubers do. Keep up the great work.
Just gonna hop on a 50 year old train to go pick pistachios on the side of a volcano because that’s just normal everyday stuff, ya’know.
It is there
The trains are 40 years old
And in 2 years new trains will arrive and will replace the old trains
"No one combines vintage rail transport and volcanoes quite like they do here"
A hotly contested niche, for sure!
What about the Circumvesuvia round the Bay of Naples and Mt Vesuvius?
Try Japan
The volcano would be hot, yes!
I rode this when I was exploring Sicily a few years ago. Got off randomly a few times to explore, found an abandoned convent or something in a town with warfare scars still on the buildings. Good times.
I watched this about two hours ago and now I've herd Etna has erupted again!
Yikes! I often wonder about this while watching TravelPorn. Lol hoping Tim or bald or Tom Scott or toycat or... dont wind up filming natural disaster.
I mean it...I was in SF in 89 for earthquake and it was sofa king scary
@@michaelhatling1453 sofa king scary?
@@worldscalephotography Say it out loud to your maiden aunt ;o)
Took me a while LOL
@@michaelhatling1453 Wait did you say...porn?
Dude, I don't know why I started watching your channel, but I absolutely love it. Currently binge watching everything. I'm much more likely to search for the local historical railway in the next town I visit than before.
Omfg only now YT recommends me this video. My family is from Catania, right next to the station. My dad when he was a kid, used to hop on this train with his friends from Borgo to Cibali, just to watch the football matches
Looks like a beautiful area!
The railway reminds me of the funicular railway that used to go up Mt Vesuvius (until it was destroyed in the 1944 eruption).
If you think building a railway on an active volcano is crazy, you have to know that on Etna there are also skiing resorts
Great vid Tim. I went on a similar railway line around Mt Vesuvius, from Napoli to Pompeii and back
It's the similarly named "Circumvesuviana". Vesuvius IS active too, just not as active as Etna - last eruption during WWII.
I was riding that same railway when one crazy Italian decided to throw a massive rock through the window. (nobody got hurt)
Actually the Circumvesuviana goes beyond Pompeii to Sorrento, and has 4 other routes too
@@Minecraftrok999 Are you sure it wasn't the volcano erupting?
I think you’d enjoy the Mount Washington cog railway. Not a volcano, but very interesting nonetheless.
Why do I get the feeling that you are a fellow New Hampshirite?
Yes it is. I’m from CT and I love the cog railway
What a coincidence, I just watched Mustie1's video about that!
The "Bronte" referred to is the centre of the Duchy of Bronte awarded to Lord Nelson in gratitude for his victory at Aboukir Bay.
I thought it was named after Bronte beach in Sydney :P
@@worldscalephotography Hardly, unless time travel has been perfected.
"Who is this Bront woman?" -- George V
Rode this last month, great ride especially in the old railcars with the open windows.
Catching up and rewatching your videos during lockdown times and I am greatly appreciating the kind, gentle, and funny way you present your videos. Thank you!
Cheers Eddus!
Beautiful views. What a nifty rail system.
Thats quite a dangrous volcano... italians: " We ShOuLD BiUlD A RAIlWaY TheRe"
nah, etna is not dangerous. Vesuvio is. And we built there one of our largest city! napoli
"Sicilians"... Funny. I was stationed there for 2 years (long ago) but I did not know that the railway trekked -around- the mountain...
... The alternation of capital letters together with lowercase letters should simulate an Italian that pronounces the phrase in English with its striking accent, and therefore underline that Italians are imbeciles because they built a railway ... what to say? I'm baffled.
Not really dangerous: he's still active, he erupts tiny bits of lava but it's pretty safe.
The Vesuvio, on the other hand... He could explode at any time cuz he's quiescent
Idiot: in addition to not answering, you ignore or pretend to ignore the many vulvcanic islands on which humanity at any latitude and longitude has built buildings, roads, infrastructures, etc., such as Hawaii, where it was built exactly in meeting point between two faults, between eruptions and quite frequent destructive earthquakes .. oooh yes, but those are not Italian, and you certainly do not spend your time to put idiotic and racist comments under other videos like that... but in hawaii they are not Italian, so you don't do it! LMAO
“It takes two hours to make the 70km journey”. Try the M25 Tim!
In Britain, we'd brand this fine service "HS2"
Sounds about the same average speed as my country's subway/rapid transit (~1 1/2h to cover ~50km)
Funny how almost the EXACT same story exists in Naples for the Ferrovia Circumvesuviana, although throw in some other spur lines and graffiti in.
You haven't mentioned that Nelson was made Duke of Bronte
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronte,_Sicily
It's also possible that the famed Brontë family indirectly took their name from the town.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bront%C3%AB_family
I'm proud to say, those new diesel units were built in Poland. You can actually see the manufacturer's logo ,,Newag" under the driver's cab.
The real question is: why they shouldn’t?
Only just found your videos Tim and have been binge watching today. Perfect for lockdown Sunday. I don’t live far from HA HA road and am originally from Luxembourg (loved the Luxembourg vs Netherlands one). Keep it going (lockdown or not)
1:49 That was a very well-disguised transition and was perfectly timed with the narration. Great work!
I took the Funivia up Etna a few years ago and despite at least three minutes of research before planning my holiday,I didn't even know this existed.I'd like to go back to Sicily at some time as I only had a couple of days there,so will give this a ride on.
before the 2000s the railway actually went INSIDE the city of Catania. This cabride [in Italian] from 1994 is a clear example of that. After 2000 the terminus has been moved to Catania Borgo
Edit: there are plans to convert the part until Randazzo in the new Catania Metro line.
Really like that it's still a normal commuter and industry railway.
yup. In the last decade, they have opened three underground variants in three small towns between Bronte and Catania.
I'd be visiting that pistachio fest this year. Thanks, COVID.
Grazie a TH-cam per avermi consigliato questo video molto bello e informativo 👍👏🇮🇹
Man! We just took a silly bus up the mountain. (I suppose we probably got higher up the mountain on the bus than we would have on the train, but the train would have been more fun :) ).
you mean a S(ic)illy bus.
@@sirBrouwer If it was a Sicilian bus, it wouldn't have 2nd gear. That's nice and all that you took a bus *up* the mountain but have you skied *down* that mountain? :D
@@tehpw7574 how is skiing down a mountain a word pun?
I lived in Catania for a few years but never rode on the Ferrovia Circumetnea. We would just drive up to the Rifugio Sapienza to hike up Etna.
this is a epic youtube channel!
Bad news: the track from Catania Borgo to Paternò closed down in July 2024.
I have a feeling I would be rather in the modern diesel trains looking at the old-timer trains than the other way round LOL.
Ha, that's not a bad idea :)
I remember visiting Wetzlar by car and parking in the car park there and taking most of the cityscapes from the top of the car park as it was the only place where you didn't see the car park from. The cathedral in Wetzlar is fascinating as it is both a Lutheran and a Catholic cathedral!
my dad's family is from mt etna so i've spent a lot of time in sicily/around mt etna. my parents say i've been on this train. however, it must have been when i was a toddler bc i have absolutely zero memories of it. we're always taking the car when we're there 😆
There’s some wonderful views there - I wonder if those older rail cars have now all been retired...
You want to start worrying when you find a train _inside_ a volcano...
Because then you know you're in a mad scientist's lair! ;)
Hi I really enjoyed your video on Ferrovia Circumetnea, it brought back good memeories of when I lived in Sicily in the mid1990s
Thanks a lot for this I’m actually in Catania now, and found this very helpful !
Those aren't railcars, they're diesel multiple units or DEMUs.
Not only pistachios. Some of Scily's finest wine comes from the slopes of Etna.
The height varies because it depends on the amount of lava in the chambers beneath. Much like how full your hot lava bottle is before bedtime.
The trains and stations are not vintage it's just how it is in southern Italy
No it's not, this isn't FS
I was there a couple years ago. However it was some kind of special day so it was closed :/
The mountains north of Etna are never mentioned in tourist guides, but, wow are they wonderful!
CANZONE con piano CIRCUMETENA th-cam.com/video/w6_Pf-Pv6Bw/w-d-xo.html
could you cover the old cog railway that went up to Asiago Italy maybe?
Mmmm... Pistachios...
Tim: "there are very few places in the world where they combine vintage transport and vulcanos quite like they do here"
Circumvesuviana in Neaples: "Am I a joke to you?"
Few is not none.
@@laurencefraser you must be fun at parties
2:49 that's one beautiful scenery!
And there are so many of those in the rest of Italy as well. It's just such a beautiful country. Barely functional at times, but very, very beautiful indeed. And then the people: what are essentially traffic wardens have uniforms that in other countries would be reserved for special occasions, such as a royal visit. Even the street sweepers wear beautifully designed hi-viz uniforms.
Interesting. Need to learn Italian to read the train schedule.
Indonesia is made of hundreds of active volcano, several of them have histories of eruption with VEI 6 or above, and their people build an entire civilization around it.
VOCanoes are just terrible colonial machines to keep the Indonesians in check.
@@hendrikdependrik1891 G E K O L O N I S E E R D : Nature edition
Thank you ! I really like your videos!
im glad the volcano I live on is not active anymore xD
So unbelievably, as I'm certainly no mountain climber and never was, there IS a mountain that I've climbed, but you haven't. Yes, in the autumn of 1977 We (three high school teachers and two high school classes, including me) spent a week in Sicily, and we did go to the summit and looked down the crater.
At the time there was a movie being recorded near the station below the peak involving actors dressed as prehistoric people and wearing prosthetic faces and hands. But their sitting quietly drinking coffee (presumably between takes) somewhat broke the illusion of the wild, dangerous and untameable. But they seemed to fit right in with the surrounding barren landscape. I wonder if I'd have been scared to meet one of them outside.
Well Tim I just finished binge watching a heap of your videos many of watching I’ve seen before. Absolutely love your work. Thanks for sharing and keep up your great work. Greetings from Straya 🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Alistair Maclean: creates action thriller novel entitled Death! Train!
Tim Traveller: rides and makes informative video about narrow-gauge railway on Volcano! Train!
Trying to come up with something funny or useful to say, but can't think of a good Riposto. OTOH, Randazzo was a great place to stay, and FCE a great way to get there.
@The Tim Traveler >>> One day, I bet their ridership is just going to _ERUPT...😝😝😝_
There used to be a funicular railway up Vesuvius. It got kyboshed in the late 19th century eruption
I love your videos. Interesting places and facts nobody cares about (except us).
Like you I also visit places on my journeys not many people would stop and ignore tourist places.
Ever wanted to see a volcano up close, but no interest in climbing? The Sicilians got you covered!
How did I never see this video before?
Looks like and amazing journery!
And now I know where they settled
The circumvesuvius railway is also quite nice. Cheers Tim for another great video.
You should come visit Naples and it’s railways that goes trough and on volcanos
You had me at Pistachio Festival!
This company that runs this line does not need insurance as the insurers said they were already covered. Lovely video, great straightforward presentation. Really interesting.
An intriguing trip, but I was surprised by the brevity of the video and was hoping for more coverage. Incidentally this railway is built to "Italian metre gauge" which is 950mm.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrow-gauge_railways_in_Italy
Es hat Spaß gemacht, mit dem Alten Zug 🚂
im Frühjahr, rund um den Ätna 🌋 zu fahren.
Ach ja, hatte noch eine Flasche 🍷Rotwein,
Ciabatta und Chili - Pecorino dabei. 😉
I took a similar train down south with my bike. As you can see, they're hard to fit into those carriages, so the conductor put us first class. It wasn't as fancy as you'd think :D.
Spicy, mate! Spicy!
etna crabappel?
Ur growing fast
You never even went close to the volcano.. CLICKBAIT!
4:05 / 4:06
Did you reach the summit, and if so, how? Only active volcano I went to was Mount Taal and I had to take a boat then we rode horses to the top.
These are great videos! How many languages can you speak?
If you want vulcanos and cable trains or old railways come to Naples we have plenty of those
It's very pretty there.
Enjoying your videos. I wish you'd expand this one by an hour or two.
Thank you for the video. I'm adding the trip to my bucket list!
If I ever go back to Sicily I need to ride this line!
Was this railway built so they could evacuate the area? It's clear it's well used.
Welp, at least this explains why pistachios are so expensive 😂
Did the ride also. It is a long drive with beautiful views
Awesome. I was there at one point al hyped to get on the train. Staff said that it did not go at that Day😂😭
Never Pompeii a country twice...
great loved it shame it was not longer, it seemed to end to soon :-)
Do they have to abide by disability rules?
More around the volcano and not up
by any means
Stunning visuals of the village...
Bellissime immagini grazie
**Beautiful** area!
Epic
What a nice train 👍🏼
Pretty
What is the track gauge?
950 mm
it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrovia_Circumetnea
Alex La Rosa - Thank you.
Alex La Rosa - Thanks again.
...Helllllllllooooooooo
Joke's on him: Every train in Italy is "vintage".
Intamin Silly comment as inaccurate as to fact as it is misleading in in judgement - many of the trains are amongst the fastest in Europe and the prices, given how expensive Italy is in general, are extremely reasonable.
Did not know the AGVs are already considered vintage.
When we took the trains (Fiumicino-Roma-Firenze-Venezia-Milano-Roma) on our honeymoon in 2001, the trains were (a) almost all on time and (b) almost all ETR500 high-speed trains, and VERY comfortable. The only train that left a bit late was from Venezia to Milano. It could also be considered vintage, because it had one of those cool articulated Italian locomotives, and traditional carriages with compartments for six people. (And most of the way, it was just my wife and I. It was actually my favourite train trip of the lot.) The reason why it left late, though, was because the mechanics were delayed. And THAT is typically Italian, having some old arcane law stating that you need to have a team of mechanics on board. Incidentally, the trip from and to Firenze, through Toscana, is breathtakingly beautiful, even by Italian standards.
The Italian railway system is vast and has rolling stock of all generations, from old to the most modern ones like the Frecciarossa and AGV.
That's absolutely not true
"villages"
*The tens of of thousands of people living in each one of these "villages"* ಠ_ಠ
Anyways great video, I see you even added subtitles :D
The circum is a very important infrastructure for us, and a new underground railway is in the works ™️
It's often easy to forget the touristic importance of the "littorina" 😅 so I'm happy if more people get to know about it.
Ps: *only* Bronte's pistacchio is *real* pistacchio 😉