A nostalgic journey through the Italy of stations, departures, reunions and the legendary FS E.646
There was a time when travelling by train was not simply a way of getting from one place to another. It was an event. The journey began long before the locomotive started to move, sometimes days before, when suitcases were taken down from the top of a wardrobe and placed open on the bed. Clothes were folded carefully, sandwiches were prepared for the road, children were reminded not to forget anything, and someone inevitably checked the tickets again and again. Then came the station, perhaps before sunrise, perhaps in the heat of an August afternoon, perhaps on a cold winter evening when your breath turned white beneath the enormous roof of the platform. The station was where the adventure truly began.
Italian stations had their own music. The metallic voice coming from the loudspeakers, the whistles of railway workers, the sound of doors closing, the wheels striking the rails, the hurried footsteps of passengers dragging heavy suitcases that did not yet have convenient little wheels beneath them. There was the smell of coffee coming from the station bar, cigarette smoke, newspapers, engine oil, damp stone after rain and that particular scent of railway carriages that anyone who travelled in those years would recognise immediately even today.
And then there was the train.
At the head of many of those trains stood powerful locomotives such as the FS E.646, one of the great machines of Italian railway history. It was not built to be admired in a museum. It was built to work, to pull long passenger trains across the country, to climb, accelerate, brake, start again and continue for hundreds of kilometres. Behind that locomotive travelled much more than passengers. Behind it travelled Italy itself.
The E.646 belonged to a country undergoing one of the greatest transformations in its history. Post-war Italy was leaving poverty behind and entering the years of industrialisation, mass mobility and the economic boom. Villages that had remained almost unchanged for generations suddenly began sending their sons toward Turin, Milan, Genoa and the industrial centres of northern Italy. Factories needed workers. Universities attracted young people from provincial towns. Families discovered holidays by the sea. Italians working abroad returned home during the summer. Soldiers travelled to barracks, students returned to their families, grandparents crossed the country to visit grandchildren.
And almost everyone, sooner or later, passed through a railway station.
For millions of Italians the train represented hope, although hope was often accompanied by sadness.
Imagine a young man leaving Calabria or Sicily in the early 1960s. He might be twenty years old, perhaps younger. His entire world fitted into a small suitcase. Two shirts, a jacket, some underwear, perhaps a photograph of his parents, perhaps a letter from his girlfriend. His mother had prepared food for the journey because mothers always worried that their children might become hungry somewhere between Naples and Milan. His father stood beside him trying not to show emotion.
Nobody knew exactly when the young man would return.
There were no mobile phones. No video calls. A telephone call was expensive and sometimes complicated. Letters required days. Leaving really meant leaving.
The train began to move.
At first the person standing on the platform could walk beside the carriage. Then he had to walk faster. Then he stopped.
The train continued.
Through the window, the station slowly disappeared.
That simple moment contained an extraordinary amount of emotion. Fear, excitement, guilt, courage, loneliness and hope could all exist inside the same person.
Maybe the young man was going to work at Fiat in Turin. Maybe to a factory outside Milan. Maybe he would eventually travel farther north to Switzerland, Germany or Belgium. He did not know exactly what the future would bring.
But the railway was carrying him toward it.
That was one of the extraordinary characteristics of old train travel: you could feel distance.
Today we enter a high-speed train, open a laptop, answer messages, look at a telephone and suddenly discover that hundreds of kilometres have passed. Modern railway travel is magnificent, fast and comfortable, but geography sometimes becomes almost invisible.
It was different then.
You watched Italy change through the window.
Fields became hills. Hills became mountains. Vineyards appeared and disappeared. Factories surrounded large cities. Small villages could be seen on distant ridges. Rivers suddenly flashed beneath bridges. Stations appeared carrying names you had never heard before.
You experienced every kilometre.
A child could spend hours with his forehead pressed against the glass.
There were houses beside the railway and children sometimes waved from gardens. Cars waited at level crossings while the train thundered past. Women hung washing from balconies. Farmers worked in fields. Church towers rose above villages. On coastal routes there would suddenly be a magnificent glimpse of blue.
“The sea!”
Every child in the carriage looked.
For many Italian families, the first sight of the sea from the train window marked the true beginning of summer.
Holidays were different then too. They were prepared almost like expeditions. Families did not simply decide on Friday evening to spend the weekend somewhere. A summer holiday could be one of the major events of the year.
Suitcases were packed carefully. Food was prepared for the journey. Tickets were purchased. Children counted the days.
On departure morning everyone woke ridiculously early.
The father struggled with luggage. The mother carried a bag containing everything the family might conceivably need during the next twelve hours. Children were sleepy and excited at the same time.
Then the family reached the station.
The destination board might say Rimini, Riccione, Viareggio, Naples, Bari or another seaside town that, in the imagination of a child, seemed almost as distant and mysterious as another continent.
The train journey could be exhausting.
Compartments became hot. Windows were opened. Then someone complained about the air coming through the window. Someone else wanted it open again. Children asked, “How much longer?” approximately every seven minutes.
Seats were uncomfortable after several hours.
People carried too much luggage.
Trains could be crowded.
Yet ask those children today, now perhaps seventy years old, what they remember about those journeys.
Very often they smile.
Because memory does something wonderful. It keeps the emotion and gradually softens the inconvenience.
They remember their father lifting the suitcase onto the luggage rack.
They remember their mother opening a parcel of sandwiches.
They remember playing cards.
They remember counting tunnels.
They remember falling asleep against the window.
They remember waking up somewhere they did not recognise.
They remember the sea appearing in the distance.
And they remember feeling that the world was enormous.
The traditional railway compartment was also one of Italy’s great social spaces.
Six or eight strangers could find themselves sitting opposite one another for an entire day.
At first there was usually polite silence.
Someone opened La Gazzetta dello Sport or Corriere della Sera. Someone adjusted a suitcase. Someone looked out of the window.
Eventually somebody spoke.
“Where are you going?”
That was enough.
Within an hour people who had never met before could know each other’s families, occupations, problems and opinions about the government.
Italians talked.
They talked about football, politics, work, prices, children, military service, strikes, weather, marriages and food.
Especially food.
At a certain hour somebody opened a bag.
A sandwich appeared.
Then another passenger produced cheese.
Someone had fruit.
A southern Italian family might have enough food to feed half the carriage.
“Would you like some?”
That question destroyed every remaining barrier.
Food was shared.
Wine occasionally appeared.
Children received biscuits from strangers.
By Bologna the entire compartment sometimes behaved as though everyone had been related for twenty years.
And then, one by one, the passengers disappeared.
Someone got off at Florence.
Someone at Bologna.
Someone at Milan.
A person with whom you had shared eight hours of your life stood up, took his suitcase and said goodbye.
Perhaps you never saw him again.
There was something beautiful about those temporary friendships.
No social media connection followed. No telephone numbers necessarily exchanged.
For a few hours your lives had crossed.
Then they separated forever.
The railway was full of these small human stories.
There were also the night trains.
Anyone who remembers travelling across Italy at night knows that it was a completely different world.
After evening, the carriage slowly became quiet. Lights were lowered. Newspapers were folded. Jackets became pillows. Children stretched across parents. Adults invented sleeping positions that appeared anatomically impossible.
Outside, the Italian countryside disappeared into darkness.
Occasionally you woke.
The train was standing in a station.
Through the window you could see an empty platform illuminated by yellow lights. Perhaps the sign said Orte, Bologna, Firenze Santa Maria Novella, Salerno or some other place suspended in the middle of the night.
A railway worker walked past.
A door slammed.
A whistle sounded.
Then the train moved again.
Slowly at first, then faster.
The rhythm of the wheels returned.
You closed your eyes.
And the locomotive continued working while you slept.
There was something reassuring in that thought. You did not need to know exactly where you were. Somebody else knew. The railway knew. The locomotive knew.
You simply had to trust it.
Hundreds of people slept while the E.646 pulled them through darkness toward morning.
Perhaps that is why locomotives became almost human in the imagination of railway workers and passengers. They worked while everyone else rested. They crossed rain, heat, fog and winter cold without caring who was sitting behind them.
A locomotive did not know whether a passenger was happy or desperate.
It did not know whether someone was travelling toward the best day of his life or the worst.
It simply carried everyone.
A bride.
A soldier.
A businessman.
A student.
A migrant worker.
A grandmother.
A prisoner of his own thoughts.
A child travelling to the sea for the first time.
A man returning home after years abroad.
All equal behind the locomotive.
Perhaps the most emotional trains of all were those carrying Italian emigrants home.
During the decades of great migration, millions of Italians worked outside their hometowns and often outside Italy itself. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and France became temporary or permanent homes for families originally from Sicily, Calabria, Campania, Puglia, Veneto and many other regions.
For them, summer meant returning.
The journey south could last enormously long.
But every kilometre brought them closer to home.
Children who had grown up speaking German or French heard their parents’ Italian become stronger as the train travelled south. Bags were filled with presents for cousins, grandparents and neighbours. Clothes were carefully chosen for the arrival.
Then came the Italian border.
For someone who had spent a year working abroad, seeing the signs of Ferrovie dello Stato could produce an emotion difficult to explain.
You were not home yet.
Perhaps hundreds of kilometres remained.
But you were already in Italy.
The coffee tasted familiar.
The voices sounded familiar.
The gestures were familiar.
The station names belonged to your language.
Then the train moved farther south.
The landscape became increasingly recognisable.
Passengers became impatient.
Someone began standing long before arrival.
Suitcases came down.
Children were told to put their shoes on.
People looked constantly through the window.
And then came the moment.
The station.
The family waiting on the platform.
Someone saw a face.
“There they are!”
Hands began waving through the glass.
The train was still moving, but everyone wanted to open the door immediately.
Then the brakes screamed.
The carriage stopped.
Doors opened.
People embraced.
Grandmothers cried.
Children disappeared into crowds of relatives.
Men who had spent an entire year behaving like tough factory workers suddenly became boys again when their mothers wrapped their arms around them.
No luxury car could have created that moment.
No aeroplane arrival could quite reproduce that slow anticipation.
The railway had made them wait.
And waiting had made reunion powerful.
That may be one of the greatest differences between yesterday and today.
We have become extraordinarily good at eliminating waiting.
We send messages instantly. We know where our families are. We track journeys on screens. We know exactly when the train will arrive. We communicate from the carriage until thirty seconds before meeting someone.
It is convenient.
But once, waiting was part of love.
People stood on platforms looking toward the tracks.
The train was late.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Twenty minutes.
Then someone saw the locomotive approaching in the distance.
The heart changed rhythm.
Because inside one of those carriages was your person.
Your son.
Your wife.
Your father.
Your girlfriend.
Your grandchildren.
To everyone else it was simply a train.
To you it was carrying the whole world.
That is why old railway photographs can be so emotional today.
We see steel, cables, tracks and carriages, but our memories supply the people.
Look at an FS E.646 and imagine what existed behind it.
Imagine hundreds of windows.
Inside each window, a different life.
A student travelling to university for the first time, pretending not to be frightened.
A young soldier returning home on leave.
A businessman reviewing papers.
A family going on holiday.
A grandmother carrying food that nobody had asked her to bring but everyone would eventually eat.
A woman travelling to meet the man she loved.
A worker travelling north in search of employment.
A man returning south because his father was ill.
Someone celebrating.
Someone grieving.
Someone starting again.
The locomotive pulled them all.
That was its greatness.
The E.646 did not have the glamour of a Ferrari or the romantic elegance of a Vespa. It belonged to another great Italian tradition: machines designed to work.
Powerful machines.
Reliable machines.
Machines built to endure.
Italy’s story is not made only of sports cars, fashion and beautiful objects. It is also made of trucks, tractors, buses, industrial machinery and locomotives that worked every day while the country rebuilt itself.
The E.646 belonged to this Italy.
Its beauty came from usefulness.
You looked at it and understood that it had a purpose.
To pull.
To continue.
To arrive.
Again and again.
Perhaps that is why seeing one today can produce an emotion that has little to do with technical specifications.
We are not really remembering the locomotive.
We are remembering the people who stood beside it.
We remember our parents when they were young.
We remember grandparents who are no longer here.
We remember ourselves as children.
We remember holidays that seemed to last forever.
We remember the strange excitement of travelling through the night.
We remember heavy suitcases.
We remember sandwiches wrapped in paper.
We remember the station clock.
We remember a father saying, “Stay close.”
We remember a mother counting the bags.
We remember running along the platform because the train was about to leave.
We remember someone waving from the window.
We remember watching someone disappear.
Perhaps the deepest nostalgia is never really nostalgia for things.
It is nostalgia for the people we were when those things surrounded us.
An old train reminds us of a time when our parents were still young enough to carry the suitcases.
A railway station reminds us of a grandmother waiting at the end of the platform.
A compartment reminds us of childhood summers.
The rhythmic sound of wheels on rails reminds us of falling asleep while someone else worried about the destination.
And suddenly the locomotive becomes a time machine.
Modern trains are unquestionably better in almost every measurable way. They are faster, quieter, cleaner, safer and more comfortable. Italy’s high-speed network is one of the great achievements of modern European transport.
But efficiency cannot replace memory.
Today we can cross half the country while watching a film on a screen.
Yesterday we watched the country itself.
We saw rivers.
Factories.
Villages.
Mountains.
Fields.
Stations.
People.
We learned, without realising it, how long Italy was.
We felt the Apennines.
We understood the distance between Milan and Naples.
We watched morning become afternoon and afternoon become evening.
The journey had weight.
And when we finally arrived, arrival meant something.
There was often a final moment that every railway traveller knew.
The train began slowing.
Passengers recognised the outskirts of their city.
People stood up too early.
Suitcases came down from the racks.
Coats were put on.
Children were awakened.
Everybody crowded toward the doors despite knowing perfectly well that the train still had several minutes to go.
Then familiar buildings appeared.
The tracks multiplied.
The station roof approached.
People searched through the window.
And there, somewhere on the platform, was somebody waiting.
A hand appeared.
A smile.
Perhaps tears.
The train finally stopped.
For hours the locomotive had been merely a machine.
Now it had completed something profoundly human.
It had brought someone home.
And perhaps that is the best way to remember the great Italian trains of the past.
Not only through horsepower, voltage, axle arrangements or technical history, important though all those things are.
Remember them through the lives they carried.
Remember the workers travelling north with little more than courage inside their suitcases.
Remember the families going to the sea.
Remember students beginning new lives.
Remember soldiers returning home.
Remember emigrants coming back to Italy every summer.
Remember strangers sharing bread inside a compartment.
Remember children sleeping against the window while mountains passed outside.
Remember the people waiting on platforms.
Because behind every old railway photograph there are thousands of invisible stories.
Some happy.
Some painful.
Some ordinary.
Some unforgettable.
The FS E.646 carried all of them.
It carried fatigue, because travelling could be tiring.
It carried separation, because sometimes the train was taking someone away.
It carried loneliness during long nights.
But above all, it carried hope.
Hope of finding work.
Hope of returning home.
Hope of seeing the sea.
Hope of beginning university.
Hope of meeting someone.
Hope of changing one’s life.
Hope of seeing a loved one waiting at the other end of the line.
Perhaps that was the true power of the railway.
Not the power measured in kilowatts.
The power to connect human lives.
And if we could return for just one evening to an Italian station of the 1960s, perhaps we would stand quietly beneath that enormous roof and listen.
The loudspeaker announces the train.
Passengers begin moving.
A mother takes her child by the hand.
A man lifts a suitcase.
A young woman looks down the platform for someone who has not yet arrived.
The stationmaster raises his signal.
A whistle sounds.
Ahead of the carriages, the great locomotive waits.
Then, slowly, the train begins to move.
Faces appear at the windows.
Hands wave.
The platform slides away.
The rails stretch into the distance.
Somewhere ahead there is another station.
Another city.
Another family.
Another beginning.
And somewhere, many hours later, somebody will be waiting.
The train will slow.
The brakes will sing against the wheels.
The doors will open.
Someone will step onto the platform.
And after hundreds of kilometres, sleepless hours, heavy luggage, uncomfortable seats, tunnels, stations, conversations, sandwiches, dreams and memories, only two words will matter.
You’re home.