Pietrarsa railway museum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Pietrarsa railway museum is in Naples in southern Italy. It is one of the most complete such facilities in the world. The museum is located on the premises of the former metal foundry of the Kingdom of Naples, a plant that produced most of the boilers for locomotives and steam-driven ships in the kingdom in the first half of the 19th century.

The museum contains original engines as well as scale models incorporated into a display of the history of trains in Italy. The displays include the Bayard, the first locomotive in Italy, which started its run from Naples to Portici on October 3, 1838.

With the unification of Italy, the construction of steam boilers was taken over by industry in the north and Pietrarsa was relegated to the role of a repair facility. It served in that capacity until the 1970s when the facility was rendered obsolete by advances in diesel and electrical technology.

It opened as a museum in 1989 and has recently (2006) undergone restoration.