Pietrarsa National Railway Museum

About this activity

Carriage ride! To take a bit of a break from the beautiful churches of Naples and the evocative sights that the Neapolitan city has to offer, perhaps a visit to the Pietrarsa Railway Museum could be a good solution.

In the beautiful setting of the renovated Royal Mechanical Workshop, Pyrotechnic and for Locomotives dwell some 50 locomotives, from steam to electric, which after running far and wide on Italian railways are now kept as historical evidence in the Pietrarsa Railway Museum. A museum that stands right next to the first railroad built in Italy: the Naples - Portici, inaugurated on October 3, 1839, with its 7 km length now part of the railway line Naples - Salerno.

History of the Pietrarsa Railway Museum

The National Railway Museum of Pietrarsa is the custodian par excellence of Italian railway history.

The premises and pavilions that house the museum were born as a Royal Mechanical, Pyrotechnic and Locomotive Works commissioned by King Ferdinand II of Bourbon in 1840. It was in fact the first industrial hub in Italy, built 57 years before the Fiat plants and 44 years before the founding of Breda. Hundreds of steam locomotives were built in the plant that arose during the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and following the Unification of Italy and the subsequent nationalization of the railways, the factory became part of the new State Railways, becoming one of the workshops of the Great Repairs, specializing of course in steam locomotives. In the twentieth century, however, the Royal Mechanical Works did not have a long life, due to the advent of electric and diesel locomotives, a technological advancement that waned steam engines and the factories where they were built and repaired, chief among them Pietrarsa.

The workshops, following closure in the second half of the 1970s, were destined to become the Railway Museum we know today, which opened after a renovation on October 7, 1989, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Italian railways.

Curiosities of the Pietrarsa Railway Museum

The latest renovation in 2014 gave the museum wonderful outdoor spaces, with the beautiful Mediterranean Garden and a glass parapet for the waterfront terrace, which gives a breathtaking view of the Gulf of Naples.

With its total area of about 36,000 square meters, the Pietrarsa Railway Museum houses about fifty locomotives including steam locomotives, three-phase electric locomotives, DC locomotives, diesel locomotives, electric railcars, railcars and passenger coaches. In the restored 19th-century pavilions we can admire pieces of railroad history in Italy, such as the reproduction of the Bayard Locomotive that in 1839 pulled the first rail convoy on the Naples - Portici, a scene reproduced in the historical reconstruction that can be visited in the first pavilion, dedicated to steam engines and three-phase electric locomotives. The History of Italy can also be touched upon through locomotive 740.115, one of the locomotives that, at the end of World War I, pulled the train of the Unknown Soldier across the peninsula. The museum's pavilions also house many small-scale rolling stock and wagons, as well as general railway objects and models, and electric locomotives that were in service until just a few years ago: among them, the latest arrival is E.444.001, a very powerful and durable electric locomotive model that entered the collective imagination with the nickname Tortoise.

Not to be missed is the salon carriage of the Royal Train, currently Train of the Presidency of the Italian Republic, a convoy that was built for the wedding of Umberto II of Savoy to Maria Jose of Belgium, consisting of as many as eleven cars.