What happened to the project idea of reviving the Castelvetrano-Agrigento narrow gauge railway section? The last time it was talked about was 2021 when a committee – with the support of politicians from the Trapani and Agrigento areas – proposed the idea which, however, has remained forgotten, at least until now. Today that idea has been surpassed by the Castelvetrano-Gela highway project, costing between 700 thousand and 1 billion euros. “Amodo”, the alliance for soft mobility in the “Suspended Future 2024” dossier, thought of refreshing the memory of the proposal to restart the Castelvetrano-Agrigento railway line. This railway section was excluded, in fact, from among the 26 Italian tourist lines whose list is contained in the interministerial decree implementing law 128/2017, which became operational in July 2022. Collaboration was not enough to promote the reopening for tourist use of this railway. And – as “Amodo” mentions, the visit, in March 2022, of the regional councilor Marco Falcone who communicated his interest as a regional government to the Ministry of Sustainable Infrastructure and Mobility was not enough.
The Castelvetrano-Agrigento railway section is 89 kilometers long: it was closed between 1977 and 1986 due to the very tortuous route and the very long travel times. The part closest to Agrigento and up to Porto Empedocle (10 km), where there was a standard gauge track, was reopened to tourist traffic in 2001, considering its proximity to the Valley of the Temples. The reactivation project would include 25 km of tunnels in addition to 5 viaducts, this is foreseen in the preliminary project to reactivate it. «This is certainly a laudable purpose – he explains in the “Amodo” dossier – considering the importance of the centers affected, including Menfi, Sciacca and Ribera, but decidedly ambitious due to the huge financial costs required». But the focus is on the highway, also in light of the steps forward made by Anas.
