Aosta Valley

[100andthirty]

I was reading the weekly bulletin from Railway Gazette and cam across this:

https://www.railwaygazette.com/extract-of-notice-sale-of-dismissed-rolling-stock/55999.article?utm_source=MRnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Tender 3&utm_campaign=MRnewsletter- 25/03/2020

I'm aware that there's what looks like a relatively modern narrow gauge railway station that looks abandoned adjacent to one of the intermediate stops on the gondola from Aosta town to Pila ski resort. Could this perhaps, be some of the rolling stock purchased for this abandoned line?

This link talks about the line, but there's not really anything about the rolling stock:

https://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=19307

 

[MarkyT]

Here an Italian Wikipedia page about the railway:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrovia_Cogne-Acque_Fredde
Extract, translated by Google:

The Cogne-Cold Water mining railway (in French, Chemin de fer minier Cogne - Eaux-Froides ) was realized by the company Cogne for the exploitation of mines of iron placed near the ' namesake Aosta Valley resort. It was part of a transport system for feeding the Aosta sidergic complex together with mining cableways: for the exploitation of the La Thuile coal mines , the La Thuile-Arpy Railway and the Aosta-Pré-Saint-Didier Railway were built. Following the closure of the mines, which occurred in 1979 , the transformation into an interurban tramway for tourism was proposed , with the extension of the line from Eaux-Froides [1] to Plan Praz and interchange with the Aosta Pila cable car, both as a winter connection. between the district of Pila (oriented to downhill skiing) and that of Cogne (oriented to cross-country skiing) which as a link between Aosta and Cogne, competitive with the road carrier, and part of the museum recovery project of the vast mining complex of Cogne. Despite significant investments, however, this intention was never realized.

 

[100andthirty]

MarkyT...thanks very much. I wonder if they bought a train! If anyone has more than 650000 Euros available they could enter an auction for a 900mm battery powered train - the essence of the Railway Gazette link.

 

[MarkyT]

MarkyT...thanks very much. I wonder if they bought a train! If anyone has more than 650000 Euros available they could enter an auction for a 900mm battery powered train - the essence of the Railway Gazette link.

It is definitely their rolling stock, probably test run but otherwise unused since delivery in 2006, that is up for sale. The sale includes three battery locos: One for each end of a single rake of 10 intermediate cars also in the lot, and planned to accomplish one round trip per hour taking 160 people, with a spare loco held in reserve. They also had a small diesel (perhaps primarily intended for infrastructure maintenance activity) which isn't listed in the sale. Looks like the kit for sale is based on typical mining railway equipment, so might be repurposed for that by a purchaser, or for a tunnel project.