Night Trains by Martin Andrew;

Author:Martin, Andrew;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books

VENICE

Construction of the Venice Santa Lucia Station was started in the 1930s and finished in the 1950s. It is low, wide and austere, a function of Mussolini’s surprising Modernism and rail enthusiasm. In Blood, Iron & Gold, Christian Wolmar addresses the question of whether Mussolini really did ‘make the trains run on time’. He begins by pointing out that ‘Italy emerged from the inter-war period with the greatest proportion of electrified lines among European countries. The driving force was the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, who saw electric trains as epitomizing the modernizing image to boost Italy’s standing in the world.’ Mussolini certainly invested heavily in railways, but his reputation for making them run on time

was based on a special press trip staged in July 1939, days before the outbreak of war. A three-car electric unit travelled from Florence to Milan at an average of 102 mph for the near 200-mile trip, despite a long section through the Apennines, a world record that would stand until the launch of the Japanese high speed train a quarter of a century later.

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