The Splügen and Stelvio Roads

The Splügen and Stelvio Roads. 1/2

Convenient, secure, and widely branched lines of communication, whether by land or by water, promote the welfare of the lands they traverse in more than one respect.

This truth has been highly appreciated in the Austrian Imperial State, especially during the recent decades blessed with peace. It therefore possesses a widespread road network, into which railways now appear so significantly intertwined.

Among engineered mountain roads, the Splügen and Stelvio roads rank foremost. The one crosses the northern Alpine chain of the Italian peninsula at an elevation of 2,115 meters above the Mediterranean Sea. The elevation of the Stelvio road is 2,798 meters *), which is why it nearly reaches the snowline and is the highest engineered road in Europe.

These thoroughfares, opened to public passage in the years 1818 and 1825, likewise provide proof of how man, supported by keen talent, thorough study, steadfast perseverance, and ample financial means, knows how to overcome natural obstacles in creating and maintaining his works that seem insurmountable at first glance.

Just as magnificent are the special arrangements made there to render transit possible even in all stages of the harsh Alpine winter, and to protect every carriage as well as the individual traveler against the diverse elemental occurrences.

The expediency and solidity of those road alignments and these precautions proven by years of experience—which we have chosen as the subject of our present discussion—fully explain why the Splügen and the Stelvio or Wormser Joch are crossed not merely for commercial, military, and scientific purposes, but are also visited by individuals seeking the dual enjoyment of observing the wonderfully formed Alpine world and bold road engineering.

As with all roads maintained in good order, auxiliary day laborers are assigned to the permanent road-clearing staff during extraordinary works necessitated by elemental events. A special category of workers, however, are the rotteri (so called from rompere, to break), who are taken into road service during the winter season—namely in the period from the actual or threatened first snowfall, which usually occurs in late autumn, until the time when the roadway is completely cleared of snow.

Their principal duty consists in removing snow and ice as far as possible from the 5-meter-wide road, and thus also keeping clear the various sections or galleries (gallerie, paravalanghe), since their entrances and window openings are sometimes obstructed by drifted snow and surrounded by icicle formations, which, at the entrances, could prove dangerous to travelers owing to their large dimensions.

In the event of heavy, sustained snowfalls, when passage can only be opened for sledges, the rotteri must accomplish this by shoveling out the snow—with the possible assistance of additional labor, depending on whether the road is deeply cut into the terrain or lies open—to a width of 1.8 meters and to a depth of up to 1.5 meters, while simultaneously forming vertical side walls. Passing bays are created within sight, though the distance must never exceed 100 meters. It is understood, moreover, that an appropriate layer of snow must be left on the track specifically to permit sledge travel.

*) One meter is slightly more than 3.16 Viennese feet.