★ 4K 🇫🇷Cab Ride Breil-sur-Roya - Nice, France (Tendabahn) [10.2020]

If you haven't heard about this alpine pass yet, you're in for a treat. The main line connects the Italian city of Cuneo to the north with the Italian coastal city Vintimille, passing through 21Km of French territory in the process. In the French town of Breil-sur-Roya, a connection line was made to the city of Nice to the south-west as the mainline continued south-east back into Italy. With it's 25‰ (2.5%) gradients and altitude gain of over 1000m (northbound), the main line is only topped by lines of the RhB in Switzerland.
We are privileged to travel on the connection line today and see the amazing feats of engineering that came together to make this line possible. It features a number of spectacular viaducts and the third longest tunnel that is entirely in France.
It is incredible that this line exists today, considering the resistance it faced since its conception. Plans were made in the 1850's and Italy started building in Cuneo in 1883, however the French had strategic military concerns with the project which hampered any progress on the Breil - Nice line for over 25 years (the territory of Nice was transferred from Italy to France in 1860).
After the Italians finished the colossal Tende tunnel (8099m), the two countries reached an agreement, which was finalised in 1904 to see the mainline and connection line to Nice finished by 1914. Building was interrupted by World War I, and only commenced in 1921. Finally, in 1928, the line was completed and opened to traffic.
In 1935 electrification was completed of the mainline in 3 phase AC.
World War II was very hard on this line, with the French, Italian and German armies all destroying bridges and tunnels in their efforts to hinder pursuit. One bridge was destroyed 3 times. A very interesting bridge is the Bévéra viaduct (10:25). It was destroyed by the French in 1940, after Italy declared war on France to hinder its military use. When the Italians arrived, they dug a diversion tunnel and erected a temporary bridge which was used until 1962 for traffic between Breil & Sospel, before the original bridge was rebuilt. The tunnel's opening can still be seen today.
In 1963 France and Italy agreed to reinstate the line. This was an extensive task which involved the rebuilding of almost every bridge. In 1979, the line was officially reopened. The catenary wires from 1935 were not reinstated.

Unfortunately the sun was not always in our favour on this particular recording. I hope you can enjoy it nonetheless. Many thanks to my French college for making this possible.

The picture of the Bèvèra viaduct shown at 10:25 was taken by Markus Schweiss and has been used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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