Lavori Pubblici n.111

A new Big Boy Dotto Trains for the Elba Island Mining Park

The Elba Island Mining Park S.r.l. was established in 1991 with the aim of enhancing and making the Elban mining areas, disused after almost three millennia of activity but still rich in iron ore, available to tourists. These minerals are very interesting from a collecting point of view, so much so that any self-respecting mineral museum in the world exhibits samples of materials from the Island of Elba: haematite, pyrite, ilvaite (which took its name from the island's ancient name, which the Latins called Ilva, from Ilvates, a Ligurian people who settled on Elba and gave their name to the steel-producing company Ilva) and elbaite. In July 2001, the Museum of Minerals and Mining Art was opened, and visits to the mine began, carried out by means of trekking excursions and, in some cases, aimed at finding small samples of minerals that the 'prospector' could keep and collect. Already in the same year, the activities were a success and in about two months of opening, almost 6,000 visitors were recorded. The following year, opening from March to October, and counting on the school excursion period, around 15,000 visitors are recorded. Hiking is no longer enough: especially during the summer period, it is not suitable for everyone, so the company decides to invest in a tourist train. Doing research on the net and having seen others in various locations both in Italy and abroad, Parco Minerario dell'Isola d'Elba contacted Dotto Trains, who entrusted one of their technicians with a visit to study the route, the gradients and the road surface, advising the company on the best solution.

This is how the comfortable and guided excursions began in 2006 on a Dotto Muson River train, the flagship model of the company based in Castelfranco Veneto, in the province of Treviso, a world leader in tourist transport by such means on rubber vehicles: for the first season, attendance already exceeded 20,000. The following year, thanks to the availability of Dotto Trains, the Muson River model was replaced by the Zeus tractor, a model with wheels better suited to the route to be covered. The Zeus was able to better exploit the routes within the park, even on the steepest slopes, in slippery terrain and under full load, without tiring out the tractor. For the following years it is a continuous crescendo of requests. In 2019, 27,000 admissions are reached: the mining park even finds itself having to stop bookings for several days during the year due to the fast depletion of available tours (5 daily tours) for a capacity of 40 people per tour. In view of the large number of visitors, the company on the Island of Elba already began to move in 2017 to purchase a second Zeus train, a model that has meanwhile gone out of production. The Dotto company, always committed to the research and development of new innovative solutions, after having listened to the needs and requests of its customers, decided to develop a new locomotive, more powerful and performing with the latest technology that could well replace the Zeus tractor.

In 2021, the new Big Boy model was released and the company on the Island of Elba took the opportunity to purchase its second vehicle. Big Boy, the latest from Dotto Trains, can be considered the most powerful and high-performance tractor from the Dotto company, and is designed to cope with the most complicated tours under full load, on rough, unpaved terrain, with tight bends and significant slopes.

The brand new Big Boy, with its authentic colours that recall and blend in with the surrounding area, was delivered before the beginning of the summer and then entered into service during the busiest period of the summer season, flanking the previous Zeus, which is still in perfect working order, so that on the busiest days it was possible to rely on two small trains at the same time and double the number of visits to the mining site. The new full-option vehicle is able to tackle gradients of 25% when fully loaded, which means with three carriages capable of carrying more than 60 people on board, although, in this case, it was decided to opt for only two carriages, with a capacity therefore of 40 tourists. Throughout the history of the Dotto 4x4s, engines of different power and displacement have alternated. Now with the Big Boy, the decision was made to opt for a large-displacement engine with a power output of 158 HP/118 kW at 2,500 rpm to optimise performance while minimising vehicle emissions. The design, dimensions and proportions designed for the new model are intended to emphasise the vehicle's majesty and power. The mechanical design and the voluminous dimensions of the new mechanical parts made it necessary to study a new bodywork in its entirety, which was as functional as possible. The interior of the tractor was also completely revolutionised: the vehicle has a wider visibility, making it more comfortable to drive. The dashboard features a multifunctional display and a state-of-the-art on-board computer. Given the conformity of the territory of the Island of Elba Mining Park, the Big Boy 4x4 is proving to be the perfect train for the tourist service it has to undertake for unique visits, impossible to forget, in landscapes that seem to be from another world.