NINTH CHAPTER
This is for draisine fans. As the S. Bartolome platform was out of use, a repairing team came there with this service vehicle, a little better than the one showed back in the topic. It's numbered 9 and, like the other draisines I've seen here, was accompanied by a small flat car with sealing gas cylinders.
D58r Draisina 9 in sosta a S.jpg
After leaving the 1500m asl of Tornamesa site the line enters in a lateral valley, where it crosses the small village of San Bartolome,to gain altitude, turns back to the east and follows on the gradient uphill. In only 7 miles trains arrive at the more than 1800m asl (and 53 miles from the terminal) of the first of the most spectacular points of this railroad, the Puente Carrion. This metallic viaduct is 80m high and 218m long and can quietly be seen from the Carretera Central although there is a trail that arrives to the rails.
I can only show a photo without trains because I had another time the visit of "railfan luck": the S. Bartolome warden told me that in a little an ascending train should came and I shooted myself to the viaduct. Wait, wait and wait and finally I photographed the empty bridge with the last light.
I met the waited train two hours later, at Santa Clara in the darkness, double headed (damn...)!
D68r Ponte Carrión.jpg
And, to finish, something really strange for an Italian. Watch this image:
DSC01599.jpg
A prickly pear. What is the strange thing? That this image has been taken at approx. 2000m asl!!! In Italy these ones grow only in the hot far south and in plain but here they are cultivated in the peaks not only for the fruits but also as food for a kind of insect used to produce a red colour heavily used in cosmetics and food industry.
Well, I showed you what I discovered until now; the more I will shot, the more I will post (and I want to go more over on this magnificent line).
Hope this has been interesting.
Ciao
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