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Engineer Alessandro Albè died, also affected by Covid-19. A name known especially in a world, that of fans of trams, trains and rail transport: Albè was in fact a scholar and author, he made an important contribution to publications on the subject, with thirteen titles.
Resident engineer in Dairago and employed at Edison, published his first book in 1986: a volume on the history of the “Varesine”, the Milan-Gallarate-Varese-Porto Ceresio electric railway, one of the first electric traction lines in Italy, the engine of industrial development in the Upper Milan area and the tourist development of the valleys of Varese.
His advertising activity led him then all the way to south america, in recent years. Books, but also articles: “He came to visit us a month ago here in the newsroom to talk together about projects and many articles that he had already written and others that he wanted to deepen”, Gianfranco Berto remembers it, from Duegieditrice, specialized editor. «A positive, simple, enthusiastic person, a great enthusiast always friendly and helpful; in it we admire above all the originality of his research, which together with an excellent technical competence, constituted a valid reference for the entire newsroom ”.
Especially in the early years in it. the passion for a means of transport was strongly linked to a territory, specifically that ofHigh Milanese YSimplon shaft: in fact, among his later publications the note i books about the Ranzi factory in Legnano (at the forefront of small locomotives to maneuver wagons within industries) and a second volume on “Varesine” which used the third rail system.
In 1988 he edited the volume on the Vigezzina-Centovallina railway, the famous international narrow gauge line between Domodossola and Locarno “photographed” on the eve of big changes (the disappearance of the road section in Locarno, replaced by a long tunnel section and an underground terminal).
In 1993 gave it to the press, with Guido Boerani me Giampietro Dall’Olio, another important volume, dedicated to Milan-Legnano-Gallarate tram. Also in this extraordinarily successful volume (published by Calosci di Cortona), the technical aspect of rail transport is combined with attention to local history, to the constant changing landscape urban and Lombard countryside, to the great crosses of Italian history, from fascism to the ravages of war, from Liberation to the profound changes of the economic boom.
This aspect made the fortune of his books: the pages of the book on Domodossola-Locarno knew how to tell a piece of its history to the people of Vigezzo and at the same time went into technical details.
This is how even a child (who writes) who frequented the Val Vigezzo to practice cross-country skiing and who was intrigued by the cream-blue trains of Domodossola-Locarno, reading in his book words like “acclive” or “wheeliggio”, could discover a world completely unknown to most, but so present in the daily lives of millions of people.
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