To drive a railway across the Alps themselves will probably be first effected by the Austrians. The railway through the Austrian dominions to the Adriatic at Trieste, although nearly complete, is cut in two by a formidable elevation at the point where the line crosses the eastern spur of the great Alpine system. At present, travellers have to post the distance of seventy miles from Laybach to Trieste, until the engineers have surmounted the barrier which lies in their way. The trial of locomotives at Sömmering, noticed in the newspapers a few months ago, related to the necessity of having powerful engines to carry the trains up the inclines of this line. Further west, the Alpine projects are hidden in the future. The Bavarian Railway, at present ending at Munich, is intended to be carried southward, traversing the Tyrol, through the Brenner Pass, to Innsprück and Bautzen, following the ordinary route to Trieste, and finally uniting at Verona with the Italian railways. This has not yet been commenced. Westward, again, there is the Würtemberg Railway, which ends at Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. It is proposed to continue this line from the southern shore of the lake, across the Alps by the Pass of the Splügen, and so join the Italian railways at Como. This, too, is _in nubibus_; the German States and Piedmont are favourable to it; but the engineering difficulties and the expense will be enormous. Other Piedmontese projects have been talked about, for crossing the Alps at different points, and some one among them will probably be realised in the course of years. Meanwhile, Piedmont has a heavy task on hand in constructing the railway from Genoa to Turin, which is being superintended by Mr Stephenson; the Apennines are being crossed by a succession of tunnels, embankments, and viaducts, as stupendous as anything yet executed in Europe.
In Central Italy, a railway convention has been signed, which, if carried out, would be important for that country. It was agreed to in 1851 by the Papal, Austrian, Tuscan, Parmese, and Modenese governments. The object is to construct a net-work of railways, each state executing and paying for its own. Austria is to do the work as far as Piacenza and Mantua; Tuscany is to finish its lines from Pistoja to Florence and Lucca; the Papal government is to connect Bologna with both the former; and the small states are to carry out their respective portions. The great difficulty will be, to cut through the Apennines, which at present sever Tuscany from the other states; but a greater still will be the moral one, arising from the disordered state of Italy. Rome has conceded to an Anglo-French company the construction of a railway from the capital to Ancona; but that, like all other commercial enterprises in the Papal dominions, is lagging sadly.