Railway Engineer Regiment (Italy)

The Railway Engineer Regiment  (Reggimento Genio Ferrovieri) is a military engineer regiment of the Italian Army based in the Castel Maggiore in Emilia Romagna. Today the regiment is a unit of the Engineer Command and NATO's only unit focusing on railway constructions and operations.

History
During the American Civil War Union railway troops built of railroad and   of railroad bridges. The usefulness of these troops was noted in the Kingdom of Italy and on 30 September 1873 the Italian defense minister Cesare Ricotti-Magnani ordered that each of the two engineer regiments of the Royal Italian Army was to rise two railway construction companies and three railroad operations companies. On 2 July 1895 these railway companies were combined in the battalion-sized Railway Brigade, which consisted of four railway construction companies and two railroad operations companies. In October 1910 the brigade was elevated to regiment with the following structure:


 * Railway Engineer Regiment , in Turin
 * I Railway Engineer Battalion
 * II Railway Engineer Battalion
 * Transport Battalion
 * Railway Operations Section
 * Turin Depot
 * Rome Depot

During World War I the regiment mobilized two more railway engineer battalions, twelve railway construction companies, one railway operations battalion, four decauville companies, and 177 photoelectric sections, which operated searchlights along the Italian Front. During the conflict the regiment's units built of railway,  of decauville trench railways and 144 bridges. The regiment began to operate the Chivasso–Ivrea–Aosta railway in 1915 and after World War I it also began to operate the Bolzano-Meran-Mals railway in the newly annexed province of South Tyrol.

During World War II the regiment mobilized 13 railway engineer battalions and three railroad operation battalions. The battalions saw service in Libya and Tunisia during the Western Desert Campaign and Tunisian Campaign, in Southern Ukraine as part of the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia, in Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece and France. In 1941 the 9th Company of the IV Railway Engineer Battalion built a combined road and rail bridge over the Corinth Canal, using an Austrian Roth-Waagner-Brückengerät. The same battalion repaired the bridge over the Gorgopotamos river after the British-Greek Operation Harling had successfully destroyed the bridge on 25 November 1942. Another bridge repaired by the regiment's troops was the Stampetta Bridge in Slovenia. After Italy changed sides with the Armistice of Cassibile on 8 September 1943 and the regiment and its battalions were disbanded by the Germans.

On 15 December 1949 the I Railway Engineer Battalion was reformed as part of the 2nd Bridge Engineer Regiment. On 1 January 1954 the I Railway Battalion became an autonomous unit and the process of reforming the Railway Engineer Regiment began. On 1 October 1957 the regiment was officially reformed with the following structure:


 * Railway Engineer Regiment , in Turin
 * Command Company
 * I Railway Engineer Battalion, in Castel Maggiore
 * II Bridge Engineer Battalion, in Legnago
 * Railway Operations Company

On 1 January 1962 the regiment received the VI Army Corps Engineer Battalion in Bologna and on 1 February 1964 the II Bridge Engineer Battalion returned to the 2nd Bridge Engineer Regiment. On 1 July 1965 the Railway Operations Company was elevated to II Railway Engineer Battalion (Operations). The battalion returned to operate the Chivasso–Ivrea–Aosta railway in 1949. With the 1975 army reform the VI Army Corps Engineer Battalion was disbanded on 31 October 1975.

After the Bosnian War the regiment was deployed from 1996 to 1998 to Bosnia-Herzegovina to repair the long Novi Grad–Bosanska Otoka–Martin Brod–Strmica railway in Northern Bosnia, which was heavily damaged during the war. On 1 December 1997 the regiment passed from the Tuscan-Emilian Military Region to the army's Engineer Grouping, which on 10 September 2010 became the Engineer Command. In July 1999 after the Kosovo War the regiment was deployed to Kosovo, where the regiment operated the Skopje–Kosovo Polje–Pristina railway, and repaired/operated the Kosovo Polje–Peć and Klina–Prizren railways. The regiment returned to Italy in December 1999.

In 2001 the regiment ceded the operation of the Chivasso–Ivrea–Aosta railway to the Ferrovie dello Stato and on 1 February 2002 the regiment activated the Operations Battalion in Ozzano Emilia, which received the troops and equipment of the II Railway Engineer Battalion (Operations) when it disbanded on 31 August of the same year. The new Operations Battalion was disbanded on 31 October 2017 and its functions and personnel merged into the I Railway Engineer Battalion.

Current structure


As of 2019 the Railway Engineer Regiment consists of:


 * CoA mil ITA rgt genio ferrovieri.png Regimental Command, in Castel Maggiore
 * Command and Logistic Support Company
 * Railway Engineer Battalion
 * 1st Railway Engineer Company
 * 2nd Railway Engineer Company
 * Technical Support Company
 * Training Company

The Command and Logistic Support Company fields the following platoons: C3 Platoon, Transport and Materiel Platoon, Medical Platoon, Commissariat Platoon, and EOD Platoon. The regiment possess its own diesel locomotives, rolling stock and railway construction cars.