Switzerland has just marked a full year of running trains directly over the world's first solar power plant built into an active railway line, and the results have been promising enough that Italy could become the next country to try the same idea. The project, developed by the Swiss start up Sun-Ways, involves 48 specially designed solar panels fitted between the sleepers of a hundred metre stretch of track in the village of Buttes, in the canton of Neuchatel. Trains have continued running over the panels exactly as before, with no disruption to services and no incidents of glare distracting drivers, even though the setup was originally approved as just a three year trial. With those early results holding up, Sun-Ways has now signed a collaboration agreement with an Italian partner in contact with the country's national rail operator, and several other countries are watching closely as well.
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