3-021-604 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Mont Cenis road and intended railway from St. Michel to Susa, with the railway tunnel from Modane to Bardonneche, 1869. 'The river Arc, flowing westward down into the Maurienne Valley to mingle with the Isere and the Rhone, is marked on the left...The thick black-and-white line, which follows the bends of that river as far as Lanslebourg, and then zigzags abruptly to the Col du Mont Cenis, whence it passes the small Lake of Mont Cenis, the Hospice, and the French and Italian customs barriers, is the great public high road, constructed by Napoleon...The Mont Cenis Pass...had been commonly used...for many centuries...The Mont Cenis Railway, now open and successfully worked, is laid down upon the Imperial high road, occupying a portion of its ample breadth, so far as Grande Croix, just beyond the Italian customs barrier, where the descent to Susa begins. At this point, as our map clearly shows, the railway, denoted by a thick black single line, departs from the high road, which clings more to the side of the mountain. It finds a separate course on the opposite bank of a small river, joining the Dora Grossa at Susa. The whole distance from St. Michel to Susa is eighty kilometres, which is almost fifty miles'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.