From Cable Funicular to Electric Tramway
The line linking Sassi, on the edge of Turin, to the hill of Superga opened on 27 April 1884, timed to coincide with the city's Italian General Exposition of that year. It was built as a funicular using the Agudio system, the first line of its kind, in which a steel cable running alongside the track drove cogwheels on the carriages to manage the steep gradient. Steam-powered at first, it quickly became a fixture of Turin life, carrying residents and visitors up to the basilica and its views over the city.
By the early 20th century the original cable system was ageing, and the line closed in the autumn of 1934 for a full rebuild. It reopened on 16 April 1935 as an electric rack railway, replacing the cable-and-counterweight mechanism with a toothed centre rail and electric traction, a more reliable technology for the same steep terrain. Some of the original rolling stock was adapted and kept in service through the conversion, so that the line's distinctive character survived the change in technology.
Climbing the Hill
The route covers 3.1 kilometres and rises 425 metres in elevation, with a maximum gradient of 21 per cent on its steepest section. A toothed rack rail running between the two conventional rails engages with a cogwheel under the tram, giving it the grip needed to climb and descend safely on inclines too steep for ordinary adhesion railways. The stations at Sassi and Superga keep a plain, functional style in keeping with early mountain railway architecture, and the restored carriages, with their wooden fittings, still carry something of the line's early twentieth-century appearance.
Arriving at the Basilica of Superga
The line terminates beside the Basilica of Superga, designed by the architect Filippo Juvarra and built between 1717 and 1731 for Victor Amadeus II of Savoy. Its dome draws on Michelangelo's work at St Peter's in Rome, and the church has served since the 18th century as the burial place of the House of Savoy, whose royal crypt holds the tombs of dukes, and later kings, of the dynasty. The rear wall of the basilica also marks the site of the 1949 air disaster in which the Grande Torino football team was killed, a tragedy still commemorated at the site.
The Journey Today
The ascent from Sassi remains in operation as public transport as well as a scenic route, giving passengers a slow climb through the wooded hillside with widening views over Turin, the Po and Dora rivers, and, on clear days, the Alps beyond. The combination of a working early rack railway and the basilica at its terminus makes the line one of the more distinctive approaches to any hilltop monument in the region.