On 3^rd October 1839 the first railway in Italy was solemnly opened by King Ferdinand II, who took a nine-carriage train from Naples to Portici. The Neapolitan station, baptized in the honor of Armando Bayard, the engineer responsible for the construction of the railway, was located 350 m north-east of Piazza Mercato, near the place where today stands the Circumvesuviana station.

Twenty one years later, more precisely on 7^th September 1860, the station where the King had embarked for the first time, saw the arrival of Garibaldi, who, alone and unarmed, chose the train to make his triumphant entrance in Naples, thus symbolically uniting to Italy the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The avenue where the station was located (as well as the adjacent square further North) was, then, named after the great Italian hero. A stone column with a memorial marks this significant event of the Neapolitan history.

The station was closed in the beginning of the XX Century, when the new station of Piazza Garibaldi started to work. Seriously damaged during the II World War bombings, the old structure became a club for the railway workers and then a cinema (Cinema Italia). The 1980 earthquake dictated its final fate. A ruin surrounded by high walls is all we can see now.

A project to recover this historic building, along with a stretch of the old railway, was already made by Aldo Rossi, but funds are still lacking. When will the Neapolitan Authorities have the means (and, perhaps, the will) to support this future railway museum?

Bibliography

PIEDIMONTE, Antonio Emanuele, and SCONAMIGLIO, Arianna, Napoli – Uomini, Luoghi e Storie della Città Smarrita, Naples, Edizioni Intra Moenia, 2009, pp. 297-300