Avenue of the Hills or Carraia Valley

A mixed train stopping at the terminus of Porta Romana

Immediately after the presentation of the project the experts and the population were divided into two factions, those in favor and those against, with the opponents led by architect Giuseppe Poggi who, while considering his masterpiece (the Viale dei Colli) untouchable, declared himself in favor of the tramway as long as it underwent changes.^[9]

The clash began on September 15, 1887, when engineer Duranti supported the project in front of the provincial council and won considerable praise for it. A second and fundamental victory was won by the proponents of the tramway on March 23, 1888 when the province of Florence approved the concession for the Chianti tramway. On June 15 of the same year the province approved a resolution in favor of engineer Giuseppe Lenci's project requested by Mr. Emanuele Orazio Fenzi representing the Ditta Bancaria Emanuele Fenzi & C. of Florence; the project included an outline budget of 1,632,000 lire excluding the cost of rigging and rolling stock,^[10] as well as a whole series of works to be built: a new iron bridge in place of the one over the Arno at San Niccolò, a new road between Poggio Imperiale and Due Strade in the Gelsomino valley, the rectification of large sections of the Via Romana with the construction of two new bridges at Rimaggio and Testi, and in addition consolidations were mandatory at the Mulino del Diavolo bridges, the Scopeti bridge, the Falciani bridge, the Casellina and the Sant'Angelo bridge.

Poggi's response came on June 7, 1888, in a leaflet distributed throughout the city and its environs,^[9] in which he said:

A steam tramway intended to carry from Florence to Chianti, and vice versa, merchandise, livestock, passengers, workers, etc. will be useful, but it will never be convenient to the Avenue of the Hills, as it was intended to be. The walking of citizens and strangers alike will lose the best attractions, and the work will necessarily come to be altered in those which are constituent parts of its beauty.^[11]

Tavarnuzze station in the early 1900s.

Tavarnuzze station in 2010.

His counterproposal, presented by engineer Tito Gori, envisioned a horse-drawn tramway along Viale dei Colli while the steam tramway was proposed to pass through the Carraia valley; in essence, the tramway immediately after taking Viale dei Colli would abruptly turn right to pass through Via dei Bastioni, then, for a stretch in its own seat along the Carraia valley, it would enter Viale Galileo and finally, through Viale Torricelli, rejoin the Lenci route. The proponents of this project preferred it because it passed through sparsely populated areas but above all because it did not pass through Viale dei Colli, where the villas of wealthy and influential personalities were located, terrified at the idea of having what they themselves called noisy rabble pass in front of their front doors;^[12] their thoughts, moreover, had already been well expressed by the petition submitted by engineer Gori:

The thought that that noble promenade, which is the pride and decorum of the city of Florence, should, having lost all its attractiveness and the elegant character that distinguishes it, find itself reduced to the ungracious location of a steam tramway for the transportation of the goods and livestock of San Casciano and Greve, is abhorrent. Instance of the Section Chief of the Public Works Office of the City Hall Eng. Tito Gori to the Mayor of Florence, 1887.^[13]

The cost of this variant was 105,789.38 lire. Emanuele Fenzi's response was clear:

Firstly, one cannot seriously classify as a public promenade the entire stretch of the Avenue from the barrier of San Niccolò to Piazzale Michelangiolo, which is no less than 2,200 m. long. Not a soul is ever to be found there, and the City Hall knows it, and for watering they never spend a penny there, and in the matter of lighting you see one oil lamp placed there every 500 m.^[11]

In a second instance a request was made to move the track from the center of the roadway to one of the side avenues. Other protests came from both the Superintendent of Public Gardens and Promenades Angiolo Pucci, who feared damage to the trees, sidewalks and benches of the avenue, and again from Poggi, who lost the first assault and embraced the environmentalist cause with these words:

The steam emissions will certainly harm the plants close to the rail, and in the long run they will sadden even the most discrete ones; and so the walkway will become a street like any other.^[11]

But Fenzi had an answer for this supposed problem as well:

Among the 250 plane trees or a few more that are planted between the Cure and San Gervasio do you know which is by far the biggest, the tallest, the most leafy, the most beautiful of all in short? Precisely the one under which the locomotive of the San Domenico streetcar stops (note well) for at least 15 minutes every hour.^[11]

Emanuele Orazio Fenzi was a dynamic and persistent opponent who, exploiting Sonnino's influence, succeeded in convincing the Florence City Hall to totally accept his project. Bringing the matter to a close was Minister of Public Works Ubaldino Peruzzi, author of a polite but firm letter addressed to Poggi in which he closed the matter in favor of the original tramway project. Peruzzi wrote, among other things:

Does it really seem a great evil if some outsider, going to visit the Avenue of the Hills, sees for a moment a train of flasks of good Chianti wine passing by?^[11]

Limitations to the operation

Falciani station in the early 1900s.

The Falciani station in 2010.

The municipality could not forget the demands of the wealthy residents of the Avenue of the Hills and so, in giving approval to the project, it inserted a whole series of regulations and clauses that caused the tramway a difficult and uneconomical operation, but which were probably inspired by an early embryonic concept of protecting the environment, the harmony of places and the privacy of residents.^[14]

• It was imposed on the tramway to have two terminuses: one at Porta alla Croce and one at Porta Romana; for the latter, studies were made for a possible extension up to the new customs barrier placed in Viale Petrarca (called Barriera di Sant'Orsola) and up to the suspension bridge at the Cascine;

• the line was to be equipped with telegraph service and later with telephone service, later installed at the behest of the operating company;

• each wagon was to have a compartment reserved for postal service;

• along the line progressive distances were to be signaled by signs placed every 500 and 1000 m, and in addition, for the section in its own seat, it was required to have the line guarded by two watchmen who were obliged to live in the localities served;

• in the section to San Casciano in Val di Pesa it was obligatory to have lifeline tracks, but on this the Ministry of Public Works intervened, which avoided the construction of the same, but imposed a maximum speed of 12 km/h and the obligation of the Hardy automatic continuous brake, so much so that the line was then built for this type of system although no evidence remains that it was actually in use;

• trains were forbidden to exceed 20 km/h and dual traction was prohibited^[12] (given the steep gradients of the track this rule sank any possible development of the service);

• service schedules had to be divided into winter and summer and be approved by the Prefecture whose opinion was unquestionable;

• freight trains were obliged to run only at night and in closed wagons,^[14] but even this was not enough, as the connection between the Porta alla Croce station and the Campo di Marte station was opposed with numerous bureaucratic loopholes including one that imposed the obligation of only one wagon per convoy, a rule that made the service insufficient and uneconomic;^[15]

• an obligation was imposed to place the tracks in the middle of the roadway of the avenues to allow public walking and transit of the carriages (this rule was enforced even in those curves where for technical needs the track could not remain in the middle of the roadway at further expense to the builder);

• finally, the municipality reserved the right to grant more authorizations for the use of the line to other concessionaires as well, but at least granted reimbursement for maintenance expenses that remained the responsibility of the builder.^[10]

The ministry's grant

The original Tavarnuzze stop

The continuous interference and stances of the Florentine elite, which at times bordered on sheer violence,^[16] did not stop the project. If the municipality of Florence did everything in its power to hinder the project, quite different was the behavior of the municipalities of Greve in Chianti and San Casciano in Val di Pesa: the San Casciano municipality provided a non-repayable grant of 110,000 liras (later increased to 140,000 liras) for 20 years in favor of the Fenzi company to build the line.^[16]

The application to the Ministry of Transportation was submitted on August 18, 1888, and the decree was signed on December 18, 1888, by Minister Giuseppe Saracco. The text of the decree read as follows:

Authorization to the company Emanuele Fenzi e C. to build and operate with steam traction a tramway from the railway station of Florence-Porta alla Croce to Greve and San Casciano on the basis of the project of Engineer Giuseppe Lenci. Decree of the Ministry of Transportation, December 18, 1888.^[13]

Once the go-ahead was given for the work, the Società Italiana per la Tramvia del Chianti e dei Colli Fiorentini was established in 1889 with headquarters in Piazza della Signoria.^[13]

Inauguration at San Casciano in Val di Pesa

The magazine "Il Chianti" of May 31, 1891 reported on the opening of the Falciani-San Casciano section:^[19]

[...] Sunday the 24th was a day of celebration for this event. [...] At 10 a.m., at the Niccolini Theater, some prizes were drawn for the benefit of the members of the Workers' Society and Military Brotherhood, then a committee of working-class members, the Esteemed President Cav. Adolfo Giunti went to the villa Fenzi and presented, on behalf of the entire society a parchment to the One who, faithful to the family business traditions, wanted the construction of the Tramway Society. The committee presenting the parchment, a very fine work dictated by the good notary Faustino Chiti and executed by Cav. Luigi Davani, was received with exquisite kindness that is proper to the Fenzi family, who, in the afternoon hours were pleased to come among us.^[20]

From the bankruptcy of Fenzi Bank to the opening in Greve in Chianti

Greve in Chianti station on November 23, 1893, on the day of its inauguration^[21]

Shortly after the inauguration of the section to San Casciano, work on the Greve line first had an abrupt slowdown and later came to a halt. In January 1892 the Fenzi Bank declared bankruptcy,^[22] the consequence of which was a halt to work on the tramway. After the bankruptcy of its major shareholder, the Società per la Tramvia del Chianti e dei Colli Fiorentini continued to provide service on the existing lines but was ordered to pay debts to creditors.^[23] The situation was unblocked on September 24, 1892, when the company's board of directors accepted the purchase offer, for 1,750,000 liras, made by Ferdinando Cesaroni of Genoa.^[24] On the following October 26, the notarial deed of sale was drawn up and the new company exercising Tranvai Fiorentini was established,^[9] which had its administrative direction in Florence at Via dell'Arcivescovado 3.^{[note 2]}

Work resumed and the line was completed as well as the inauguration party in Greve. The first train arrived in Greve in Chianti at 12:08 a.m. on Monday, April 3, 1893.^[4]

At each inauguration, large parties were held, testifying to the enormous enthusiasm and equal expectations for the work. In the article published by La Nazione on April 5, 1893, the day of the arrival in Greve, it is written that the guests gathered in Piazza della Signoria where, accompanied by the sound of the fanfare, they boarded three first-class carriages; these carriages, drawn by horses, led the guests to the tramway station located at the place called the Pratoni di Porta alla Croce (today the intersection of Viale Antonio Gramsci and Viale Giuseppe Mazzini), where they were hitched to the locomotive "Niccolò da Uzzano." The engineer of the maiden voyage was Lorenzo Boninsegni, the stoker was Attilio Bisoni, and the conductor was Egisto Chelli, over all supervised by Cavalier Lenci. The 4-kilometer section (from the Casino Bridge to the Rimaggio Bridge), which passed through a narrow gorge of the Greve River below the Vicchiomaggio Castle, caused particular astonishment during the journey. There were as many as 6,000 people in Greve waiting for the train; the town was decked out in flags and to welcome the convoy were eleven philharmonic orchestras playing the Marcia Reale in unison. On the day of the inauguration, the Greve station was not yet ready, so the train stopped at a temporary station 200 m downstream. Once disembarked, the passengers walked through the village where numerous triumphal arches were made along the way to the square. All the civil and religious authorities of the area were present in the square, among them the Honorable Sidney Sonnino.^[25][26]

The new management company headed by Cesaroni soon revealed itself as an enterprise aimed at mere financial speculation, so much so that the service was even worse than that provided by the previous company.^[27] Its adventure was short-lived, and between late 1896 and early 1897 the operating company was absorbed by the Société Générale des Chemins de Fer Economiques,^[28] which was based in Brussels and was therefore renamed the Belgian.^[29]

In the enthusiasm generated by the new tramway, the municipality of Greve became the promoter of a committee, which on March 15, 1897 drew up a plan for upgrading it and continuing it to Siena.^[30]

Electrification, inconveniences and accidents

On July 26, 1899, electrification of the line began; the first section where steam traction was abolished was from Porta alla Croce to Gelsomino. Later the new traction was extended as far as Tavarnuzze, which was reached on September 16, 1907 with many benefits for everyone; by this date the steam section had been reduced to about 33 km.^[31] With the beginning of electrification, inconveniences for Chianti travellers increased: when they arrived at the traction change, passengers were forced to be transferred, because it soon became clear that the electric locomotives were not capable of pulling the heavy convoys detached from the steam locomotive.^[31]

Electric streetcar parked in front of Tavarnuzze station

The burgeoning complications and the various necessary maintenance work led the operating company to reconsider the importance of the Chianti tramway, making it clear that it was destined for a slow but inexorable devitalization; on this the municipality of Greve waged a long battle for the defense of the tramway that lasted for thirty years.

However, in the golden years of the service, the problems were other. The inhabitants of the area of Viale Petrarca, that is, just beyond the terminus of Porta Romana where the rolling stock was parked, began to complain about the great noise that was made, even in the nighttime hours, by the movement of materials. The reasons for the complaints were understandable: an average of 66 convoys pulled by 120hp locomotives passed under their windows, and in addition, freight cars were left parked along the tracks placed in the boulevard,^[30] which was inconceivable for the company at the time. The municipality of Florence intervened and prohibited the loading and unloading of goods between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.^[30]

Incident of November 13, 1907

Travelers also had to face new problems: on April 7, 1900, the operating company was heavily fined because the 7:06 p.m. train left at 7:40 p.m. This had happened after workers with reduced fare tickets, unable to find space, had invaded the first-class carriages,^[30] to the dismay of wealthy travelers who reported the matter to the authorities and who were not satisfied even after at the Jasmine station the local stationmaster had another second-class carriage added for the invading workers. The first-class travelers made further grievances and at that point a second fine was raised for irregular composition of the convoy.^[32]

On April 11, 1903, the train from San Casciano that had arrived at 5:35 p.m. at the Poggio Imperiale corner got sidetracked, and bindings were used to put it back on the tracks. On August 17 of the same year, another far more risky incident occurred: the convoy coming from San Casciano took the downhill slope leading to Porta Romana at a high speed and, only thanks to the counter-steam and promptness of the conductors of the first and second carriages, managed to stop in time;^{[note 3]} the failure to brake had not been caused by a mechanical failure but by the absence of the conductor of the third carriage who had not shown up for duty.^[33] Upon learning of the incident and heedless of the fact that there had been no injuries, the City of Florence made a whole series of intimidations to the conductors who responded by trying to get an overblown event back on track. The story found a conclusion only after the management company took disciplinary action against the train conductor.^[34]

In the following years there were two other serious accidents; one occurred on the morning of November 13, 1907 at Testi,^[35] when due to a landslide caused by the heavy rains of the previous days, the track on which the train was running plunged into the Greve River causing numerous injuries; the balance of this accident was modest thanks to the valor of engineer Giuseppe Testi, who perceived the subsidence of the ground: sensing the derailment he managed to brake by operating the counter-steam. The locomotive overturned and Testi and his stoker were trapped inside; only later were they rescued. For his act, the mayor of Greve awarded the engineer a solemn commendation and a cash prize.^[34] Another serious accident occurred on December 11, 1913 at Le Strette, near Falciani, when two convoys coming from opposite directions collided head-on: this time, too, there were numerous injuries and the two locomotives were destroyed.^[35]

The second accident was an opportunity to plead on behalf of all Chianti's citizens for a safer, faster service, with a greater number of runs, and above all to demand, again, that the entire line be electrified. Electrification of the entire line was planned, but not implemented, as a new, cheaper and more efficient means of transportation was beginning to appear on the market: the bus.

Competition from the bus

The inauguration of automobile service on the Florence-San Casciano-Siena route in 1922^[36]

The first public transport buses did not start running in Florence until 1927, but on the suburban lines the service had been operating for some time.^[37] In the years leading up to World War I, SITA had managed to obtain, on an experimental basis, to operate a service on the Florence-Siena line via Greve. The service was discontinued during the war, but was resumed soon after. Competition between the bus and the tramway had begun.

The "cafeteria,"^{[note 4]} as the locomotive that served on this line was kindly called, was now no longer able to meet the needs of users. There were many reasons for this: there were few runs, at Tavarnuzze it was obligatory to transfer because of the different traction system (from electric to steam and vice versa) resulting in longer travel times, times that were already long (from Greve in Chianti to Porta Romana took about two hours (1 1/2 hours from San Casciano in Val di Pesa). In 1917 SITA began running regular bus routes on the Florence-Siena and Florence-Volterra lines with a passage to San Casciano in Val di Pesa via Falciani. By bus, San Casciano in Val di Pesa was connected with the center of Florence in about thirty-five to forty minutes.^[37]

In order to protect the tramway, the Florence Railway Inspectorate required SITA to run its buses no longer from Falciani, but from Via Volterrana, with a huge lengthening of time.^[37] This decision caused a long dispute between the municipal administration of San Casciano in Val di Pesa and the Inspectorate. This situation still lasted in 1928, when the Podestà of San Casciano in Val di Pesa, General Michele Polito, sent a heartfelt appeal to the Ministry of Transportation, describing the problem:

The SITA service for the Florence-Falciani-San Casciano section modestly makes up for the much-claimed deficiency in tram service. Is it permissible today, then, that a town like San Casciano, which is only 16 kilometers from Florence and is full of agricultural and commercial life, should be content with only three streetcar departures a day, carried out with two old carriages and sometimes with only one, mixed, for passenger freight service? The Tramway Company has never been willing, due to a series of not too justifiable circumstances, to accommodate proposals to run an auxiliary service, as would be the SITA service at different hours to the tramway departures. The variation made to the itinerary of the automobile services in the San Casciano-Florence section and vice versa, and the tram service disservice have put this region in the condition of having to compare itself to any other country in regard to means of communication: clear proof of this are the deficient and impossible timetable of streetcar departures and the vicious itinerary of the automobile service with which it often takes two hours to reach the city, while 30 minutes should be more than enough.^{[note 5]}

In 1928 SITA also entered the affair and made it known that it would very much like to be allowed to return to the previous route, the via Falciani route, but in the alternative it was also fine with going through the via degli Scopeti.^[38]

A new appeal was submitted to the ministry by the podestà of San Casciano on December 21, 1928, in which improvements to the rolling stock were requested, and finally a very last petition was submitted on February 27, 1929, to the "Direzione dei Tramways fiorentini." In that appeal, in addition to the return of the buses to the more convenient line, a request was also made for an upgrade of the tramway line with the establishment of a fourth pair of runs on the Florence-San Casciano in Val di Pesa section, obtaining in response a sharp refusal thus justified:

the high cost of steam lines not offset by the low traffic.^[38]

The battle in defense of the service

The appeals of the San Casciano mayor described a real situation. Already by the beginning of the 20th century, the intensely used line appeared worn out, so much so that in 1906 the municipalities of San Casciano in Val di Pesa and Greve in Chianti had been forced to take legal action against the operating company because of its deplorable state.^[39] World War I exacerbated the crisis and a trip on the tramway became a real adventure: timetables were not respected and the condition of the line deteriorated to the point that it no longer offered the slightest safety. Inefficiencies were also due to the use of Valdarno lignite instead of coal, which was used for wartime purposes, and to the fact that the staff had been sent under arms. It got to the point that often, during the journey, passengers had to get off and go into the woods to cut some wood to fuel the train.^[39] With the conflict over, coal slowly began to return but little maintenance was done to the rolling stock: the economic situation of the Tramways Company was desperate and all improvements were postponed until a future date.^[39]

Locomotive No. 7 "Acciaioli," with engineer Giovanni Furini and stoker Giovanni Barucci

In 1921 the operating company first proposed to electrify the line but soon after changed plans and chose to replace the rail tram service with buses.^[40] The municipalities of Greve in Chianti and, to a lesser extent, that of San Casciano in Val di Pesa strenuously opposed it, so the plan was, for the time being, shelved.

The difference in reaction between the two municipalities was due to the fact that for San Casciano in Val di Pesa losing the tramway all things considered was almost a bargain: to maintain it it had to shell out a large sum each year while being aware that its inhabitants would not use it, preferring, for personal transport, the more convenient buses, even though they had a 20% higher fare than the tramway,^[40] while for freight transport trucks were now quite common. In Greve in Chianti, on the other hand, the tramway was well accepted.

In 1932 the Belgian Company, operator of the Chianti line and since 1926 of all the electrified and steam networks in the Florentine area, made it known that it wanted to suppress the line, just as in the years immediately following the end of the war the other steam lines had been gradually suppressed.

Most notable in this second battle was the magazine "Il Chianti," which was printed in Greve,^{[note 6]} which published between February and March 1932 a whole series of articles arguing for the indispensability of the tramway and its irreplaceability with other means of transportation. In order to keep it alive they asked the operators to engage in expensive modernization work and also in lowering fares, which was seen as the real reason for the line's crisis. But it was precisely the higher operating costs that had led to the decision to abolish it. They also called for adjustments to the route, the replacement of steam locomotives with diesel-powered railcars, the elimination of minor stops, and the revisiting of freight rates, which had enormous costs, so much so that a parcel shipped from Campo di Marte station to Greve paid four times the freight rate from Campo di Marte to any Italian location.^[40]

In its battle Greve in Chianti also appealed to Minister Galeazzo Ciano, to no avail, but mainly tried to involve the municipality of San Casciano in Val di Pesa. In a heartfelt appeal to his colleague from San Casciano, the podestà of Greve in Chianti not only asked for support but also veiledly let it be known, as a warning, that the battle was supported by two very high ranking members of the Fascist regime.^[41] In response, the podestà of San Casciano in Val di Pesa, on behalf of the population, asked the Prefect of Florence for the suppression of the tramway and its replacement with more efficient means;^[41] in the missive he also declared that he felt offended by the way the editor of "Il Chianti" and the podestà of Greve had dragged him into the dispute without even contacting him and furthermore had not even rectified, as he had requested, these false news.^[41]

However, SITA's competition was tight: it now ran all the road services to San Casciano, to Mercatale, to Greve and to Siena.

End of service

Due to the accumulated debt owed to the Valdarno company, the Società dei Tramvai Fiorentini e del Chianti went bankrupt on September 24, 1934 by a ruling of the Civil Court of Florence. Everything belonging to the company was purchased by the City of Florence.^[4]

The building that housed the Gelsomino station.

The line was discontinued on July 31, 1935^[42] after 45 years of operation, and with it the suburban steam network in the Florentine area ceased to exist. The tramway had been permanently replaced by SITA's red coaches, called precisely "the Reds."^[43] The last run from San Casciano in Val di Pesa took place the next day when a freight train departed at 5 p.m., collecting everything it could load.^[44]

The locomotive was the "Vittoria" and at the wheel was engineer Giovanni Furini.^[43] In Greve in Chianti, on the other hand, the service ended on the same July 31 when a freight train left the station with all the material to be taken away. The locomotive was number 10 "Greve" and left at 8:15 p.m.^[4]

The service then passed to STU-FIAT, which under an agreement with the municipality of Florence had obtained exclusive rights both over the operation of all urban and suburban tramway lines in the Florentine area active at that time and the management of all lines that would be established during the 9-year concession period. The new service was to be operated on FIAT-owned vehicles; these vehicles were to have a seating capacity of 35-40. FIAT was to guarantee a minimum of 4 pairs of daily rides between Florence and Greve and a minimum of 8 daily rides between Florence and San Casciano;^[45] FIAT relied on the company SITA^[46] to run the service. It was also to guarantee a freight service, but this was never carried out, so much so that in 1937 the magazine "Il Chianti" wrote:

[...] Since the Florence-Greve tram service was abolished, and it has now been over two years, we have had no regular and continuous connection for the transportation of goods to and from the Campo di Marte. If Greve had not had local private firms engaged in trucking, it would have remained out of even any relation to the commercial railway station in the city in which all our traffic is headed....^[47]

The closure of the tramway thus led to a worsening of the economic situation of several Chianti companies.

The staff was absorbed by the Florentine tramways, the equipment dismantled, and in the spring of 1940 the rails were torn up as a gift to the Fatherland.^[42] One of the old engines was sent to the Carrara quarries and repurposed to transport marble blocks. The boiler of the "Pier Vettori" locomotive was brought to the management offices and used for years as a heating system. The Greve in Chianti station building had already been flanked by SITA garages since 1912 and continued to serve as a bus terminal and municipal warehouse until 1970 when it was torn down;^[42] a bus stop still stands in its place, and housing has been built in the area once designated for rail development. The Sancascian station had a similar fate: a bus stop and later the headquarters of the local agrarian consortium. The passenger building was torn down in December 1983,^[48] and a parking lot was built in the area behind it.

Tavarnuzze station had a different fate: the building (called "the skittle" by the locals) is still standing although it is in a state of total abandonment, but a parking lot and a pine forest with a public park are built around it. Since 2013 the station has been involved in the Tavarnuzze square modernization project; the Jasmine station is also standing and in excellent condition, converted back to private use. With the exception of the removal of the rails nothing has changed in the buildings at the Falciani, Passo dei Pecorai and Gabbiano bridge stops, which house trattorias. Everything else has disappeared.

Track for freight service

Mixed train stopping at the station of San Casciano in Val di Pesa (1914)

Freight service was carried out on the entire line.

When the track was built, it was intended to use the opportunity to connect, for freight use only, the Porta alla Croce tramway station with the Porta alla Croce railway station freight yard in use by the Strade Ferrate Romane and later by the Adriatic Network.^[49] However, the construction of these few meters of track sparked a very long dispute between the Florentine municipality and the concessionary company of the tramway: the approved project provided that from Piazza Beccaria the track would turn into Via Scialoia and once past the railway by means of an underpass would end in the Porta alla Croce railway yard. At the same time, however, the Roman Railways had decided to relocate the railway further upstream, to the Campo di Marte station area; thus the tramway operators asked the municipality if they could modify their plan and presented an outline one. The variant presented provided for the construction, in place of the railway underpass, of a temporary track that was to be implanted along Viale Principe Eugenio and that would turn right to reach the station being dismantled.^[49] The City of Florence did not understand the project and accused the operating company of wanting to save money to avoid building the underpass. A long dispute ensued that ended only on July 17, 1891, when the construction of the temporary arm was authorized. When the Campo di Marte station was opened, tram service had meanwhile been electrified and the tracks ran along Viale Principe Eugenio, Piazza Donatello, Via degli Artisti, the Piazzola overpass, Viale Militare (later Viale dei Mille) and Via del Pratellino.^[49]

Due to the junction of the tramway line with the Campo di Marte freight yard, junctions were built along the entire line for the use of factories in the area. A first junction was located at Gelsomino for the use of the "Fabbrica Meccanica di Botti" for which an application had been submitted to the municipality of Florence on May 5, 1891;^[51] another authorization was granted by the municipality to the "Stabilimento Vinicolo" in the same locality.^[51] Another junction was located in the locality of Molino del Diavolo for the use of the grey stone quarries of Poggio ai Grilli; quarries that were very active at the time, so much so that the tramway in addition to the stop for the inhabitants of the locality made another stop for the exclusive use of the workers of the quarry itself.^{[note 8]} For the Testi cement plant, the line carried out a considerable amount of freight movement, quantifiable at an average of 10 wagons per day,^{[note 9]} but when the cement plant began to use trucks of its own for freight transport, the tramway suffered a major economic loss.

Other sidings were located at Bottai for the Siligardi kiln and at Greti, where service was also provided by whole wagons for use by the Caldini-Bandinelli distillery and the Caldini mill.^[52] A switch and a siding were built for the Ferrone terracotta kilns where a wagon could be left at a standstill for both the kilns and the mill existing there; in the same locality the operating company had entered into an agreement with Mr. Luigi Lombardini, manager of a grocery store with a bakery called "Bottega della Tranvia," in which a telephone was installed for the exclusive use of the personnel on duty and connected with Greve, San Casciano and Florence.^[52]