Considered a jewel of railway engineering, the old 51 km line boasted 19 tunnels—including the nearly 2-kilometer-long summit tunnel near Caprareccia—24 bridges and viaducts of great architectural value, helicoidal sections similar to those often found in Swiss railways, and a vast real estate heritage along the route, consisting of small stations, tollhouses, warehouses, and railway grounds.
In 1968 the Spoleto-Norcia railway suffered the fate of many other “minor” routes, often decommissioned because they were surpassed by road transport and therefore no longer profitable. However, like many of these railways, it has been the subject of redevelopment and safety works in recent decades to be converted into a greenway accessible to walkers and cyclists. Currently, since the urban section of the former railway is no longer passable, the starting point of the route is near the northern junction of the S.S. 3 Flaminia, while the old station on Via Fratelli Cervi has become a museum that retraces the history of what was also called the “little Gotthard of Umbria,” with photos and period artifacts.
The section within the Municipality of Spoleto is the one with the greatest elevation changes and is the richest in works both in number and importance. After crossing the mountains that separate the Spoleto plain from the Valnerina, among bridges, viaducts, and tunnels (maximum gradient 4.5%), the path arrives at Sant’Anatolia di Narco, where it is possible to continue the route north towards Norcia, along the Nera and Corno rivers, or choose to head south along the ‘Greenway of the Nera,’ a cycle path that leads to the Marmore Falls, always following the course of the river.
Note: Currently, the route of the former Spoleto-Norcia railway is not entirely passable. Information on the passable sections is available on the Umbria Mobilità website, the managing body of the route. From the same page, it is possible to download the map of the first section of the route, from Spoleto to Sant’Anatolia di Narco (about 19 km), affected by the closure of the Caprareccia tunnel, with the indication of the variant to bypass the closed tunnel and return to the route immediately after it.
