At the beginning of via Torre Clementina, right in front
of the roundabout leading to Ponte Due Giugno, you can
see a railway engine and a baggage wagon positioned
on old tracks. Certainly, it’s quite strange to see tracks
“disappearing” under the road surface and, even stranger, a nineteenth-century train between public places
and speeding cars. But there’s a reason!
The truck on which the convoy is re positioned, is what
remains of the connection between the dismantled Fiumicino old station and the Port Canal: for about a century, this has been used for the exchange of goods with
the ships that docked at the quay. The origin of the
Rome-Fiumicino railway line dates to 1875: with a law
of 3 July, the lawyer Ignazio Noccioli has been authorized to build the branch from Pontegaleria to Fiumicino. This line officially opened on May the 6th 1878.
However, the section arriving at the canal harbor, started to work later.
In 1927, this connection became so
important that has been elevated to the rank of Station
with the name “Fiumicino Porto Canale”. Other branches
were built to reach the main local industries (Vetreria
SAIV and Carbonile). Another important branch is the
one that led to the beach, exactly to the stop named
“Capanne Coccia di Morto” where people could stop to
enjoy the sea. From 1905 on wards, the railway management was given to the newly established company Ferrovie dello Stato.
Unfortunately, from the late ‘60s, freight traffic began to dramatically decline until the connection to the
port was officially closed in March 1990 (although it
was no longer in service since the 70s). With the opening of the connection to the airport in 1990 and the
new Fiumicino airport station, the connection with the
city has been closed. Among city protests, last train to
Rome left the night of January 30th 2000.
