The Pietrarsa railway museum is situated between the suburb of Naples and San Giorgio a Cremano, of which the former village of Pietrarsa forms a part. It lies south of Naples in southern Italy just to the side of the Naples–Portici railway line, the first one in Italy. It is served by the Pietrarsa-S.Giorgio a Cremano station to which it is connected by a pedestrian subway.
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. With the unification of Italy, the construction of steam boilers was taken over by industry in the north and the Pietrarsa workshops were relegated to the role of a repair facility for the railways. It served in that capacity until the 1970s when the facility was rendered obsolete by advances in diesel and electrical technology.
The museum contains original engines as well as scale models incorporated into a display of the history of trains in Italy. The displays include a copy of Bayard, the first locomotive in Italy, which started its run on the Naples–Portici railway line on 3 October 1838.
The museum opened in 1989, underwent an intensive restoration in 2006 and reopened on 19 December 2007. According to notices posted at the site in summer 2011, it is presently closed for further renovations, until 11th September 2011.