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So I hear you want to learn why the world’s smallest country has a railroad.
Well, the Vatican has a railroad because the Roman Empire was awesome.
There’s the answer.
Now I know what you’re thinking—“you just gave me the answer why should I stick
around for the rest of the video?”
The Vatican, like Canada, is a pretty cool place.
It has the world’s highest density of Popes, the world’s highest wine consumption per
capita, and compared to me it’s pretty huge.
Compared to other countries, though, it’s on the smaller side.
It’s about 3,000 feet wide and 2,500 feet tall.
If you took the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, and laid it on its side
over the Vatican you would be responsible for the death of thousands.
Despite its small size, the Vatican is a fully recognized and sovereign country with its
own government, its own banks, own stamps, own passports, postal system, radio station,
police officers, fire fighters, and, of course, railroad.
Being smack dab in the middle of Rome, it’s not exactly hard to get to the Vatican.
There are no border controls between it and Italy so anyone can pretty much stroll into
the country without even realizing and there are also, of course, roads going in and out.
Now, considering the runway of the nearby Rome Fiumicino Airport is more than twice
as long as the Vatican is wide, there is no airport in the country.
This isn’t all that unique.
Four other countries don’t have airports—Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and San Marino.
Now, it would’t be unreasonable to think that the Vatican, the smallest country in
the world, also doesn’t have a railroad because plenty of countries don’t have railroads.
Libya, the 16th largest country in the world, does not have a foot of functional railroad
track but there are a lot of things Libya doesn’t have… like a functional government.
Even some of the world’s most highly developed nations like Qatar and Iceland lack trains.
I don’t know if it’s related but both countries have some interesting beliefs—Iceland
believes in Elves and Qatar believes in wealth disparity.
The Vatican though, has a railroad and quite fittingly, it’s the smallest national railroad
in the world.
But why?
Now for the worst part of the video—the bit you actually learn stuff.
So, back during the Roman Empire Italy looked like this—it was all together.
But then the Roman Empire stopped existing which was a bummer unless you were Theoderic
the Great who ruled a united Italy under the Ostrogothic Kingdom until that fell and they
eventually became part of the Frankish empire, which frankly sucked, and so Italy fell apart
faster than a Kickstarter funded startup into a bunch of city-states as it remained for
the next 1000 years until people remembered how awesome the Roman Empire was and decided
that Italy should be united once again.
Everyone thought that was a great idea except the Pope who controlled this land—the Papal
States.
The new Kingdom of Italy disagreed with the Vatican’s obviously irrational desire to
keep hold of the only territory they had so they took it and so the Pope wasn’t happy.
For the next 60 years the different popes did not leave the presently unrecognized country
of the Vatican at all as a way to protest Italy’s claim to Rome which is exactly the
level of stubbornness I admire.
That was until 1929 when the two parties signed the Lateran Treaty which said, “hey, we’re
chill,” in exchange for money, a recognized sovereign state, and a free railroad.
The Vatican rail line originates in Rome at a nearby rail station, curves off over a viaduct,
then enters the state through a 35 ton iron gate that’s closed when there’s no traffic
to keep Italy from invading by train which I guess was a concern?
Immediately on the other side of the wall is the Vatican City train station.
While this whole branch is run by the country, only about 200 feet of track are actually
within the Vatican which definitively makes this the smallest national railroad in the
world.
You could walk from one end of the line to the other faster than you could walk to the
moon.
This railroad has been occasionally used by Popes to get to the Papal summer palace south-east
of Rome, but nowadays its main purpose is to get food and supplies in and out of the
country without having to drive trucks through the crowded streets of Rome.
With the exception of a once-weekly train for tourists, there are no scheduled passenger
trains to the station.
If you become the next Pope and decide to extend the rail line to two or maybe even
three stations there are a lot of things you’re going to need to learn like which bank angle
to use so that trains can go around curves without derailing, how much to adjust timetables
to account for slower running during repair work, and how to open the Vatican’s secret
underworld housing the real Slim Shady.
Luckily, you can learn two of those three things in brilliant.org's classical mechanics
course.
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