The Tramways of Italy — History, Atmosphere, and Folklore
By: Richard Bruschi
Tags: Public Transportation, History, Italy, Folklore, Culture

The Tramways of Italy — History, Atmosphere, and Folklore

Hundreds of tram rails used to cross dozens of Italian cities for decades. Now they’re mostly gone, but stories, movies, and songs remain.

Trams are still running in Milan with a vintage look. Photo by Giorgio Stagni.

Tram, streetcar, trolley, these are names for basically the same transportation method of a ‘car’, or ‘coach’, traveling along rails, the ‘tramway’, mostly for localized public transportation and sharing the road with cars. There aren’t many left around the world.

Most trams are characterized by a slow speed and most are limited to city boundaries, although they can connect different cities at times. For longer routes, the transportation is called a light-rail, which is mostly a modern term for a somewhat “upgraded” streetcar. The light rail is halfway between a tram and a train. Its main differences are the possibility of higher speeds and street-level entrances, while the tram has raised entrances. Also, the light rail often has designated lanes or roadways. Both are for passenger-carrying duties, really, there is no huge difference between a streetcar and a light rail.

Of the hundreds of trams that were running in hundreds of Italian cities between the second half of the 1800s and the first half of the 1900s, fifteen are left in eight different regions. Most people under sixty might have never seen one because even if a city technically still has one, it might be covering only a specific, and maybe small, area.

A brief history of the tram

The world’s first tram appeared on 11 September 1795 in Derbyshire, England, for industrial purposes. It worked through horsepower as all trams did in the beginning. It was basically an upgrade from the horse-drawn carriages, known as ‘omnibus’. Rails allowed for safety, increased size, hence capacity, and better management.

Trams were produced by many different companies but had a similar design, for efficiency and visibility. Photo by Luigi Chiesa of a tram in Turin.

In Italy, the first tram-line appeared in Turin in 1872 and operated within the city. The first suburban horsepower tramway appeared in 1876 connecting Milan to Monza. Immediately after the Italian Unification and with the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, all major cities in Italy built and started operating tram lines. Of the historic all-electric tramways, only four survive in Turin, Milan, Rome, and Naples.

Towards the end of the 1800s horsepower was already obsolete and all tramways were converted to electric by the turn of the century, with few cases of steam-engine power first, while others, later on, were substituted by bus lines or trolleybuses (buses that are connected to the city electric grid via connectors at the back).

A changing world

Tramway construction spread in the 1920s while, at the same time, the clash with the increasing car traffic (nothing compared to nowaday’s traffic, but still) led to the first closures of tram lines in some cities. Nevertheless, 3,000 tram companies operated around the world by the early 1900s, along with thirty public ones.

Streetcars changed entire societies and economies, as well as the face of cities and countrysides alike. Urban planning changed. Trolleys were low-cost mass transportation. These machines connected the city centers with the rest of the district, especially allowing for the development of factories and industries in the outskirts since they provided easy and direct transportation for the factory workers. Dedicated lines were then used to transport the goods.

Tram lines’ colors might have changed depending on safety regulations, differentiation from one line to the other, or simply preference. Photo by Phil Richards of a tram in Turin.

During the Fascist years, the trolley infrastructure suffered another setback. The regime wanted to modernize the country’s infrastructure and smooth out the management of public transportation. In Rome for example, the situation was chaotic, as in fact there were two overlaid yet independent grids: one for the tramways and one for the automobiles.

The regime implemented and expanded public transportation as a whole throughout Italy. For example in Milan, the tramways were left alone and trolleybuses were used to grow the public transportation system. On the other hand, it also introduced legislation and regulatory plans that effectively stopped the streetcar spread, if not directly removed the rails, such as in certain areas of the historic center of Rome which essentially halved the total rail length of the city.

This would have seemed counterintuitive, as the population was increasing and cities such as Milan and Turin had a capillary network, with thirty-five lines for the former and twenty-three lines for the latter. It was also useful in industry, such as for the involvement in the sulfur mines in Sicily.

The Second World War and its immediate aftermath were the final blow to the tram system, as production centers had been destroyed and the infrastructure — such as the rails and electric cables per se — might have been impracticable or destroyed. Although in certain cases, such as in Milan, the infrastructure was quickly rebuilt, it was also unpopular because it was considered inflexible and outdated. Suburban lines were all but closed.

A decades-old decommissioned trolleycars of the Trieste tram lines. Note there wasn’t even a door. Photo by giokai421.

The 1970s saw a revived interest in this transportation method, with the oil crisis and the exponential rise in car traffic as some of the main factors. Unfortunately, the network never grew back to its original size.

Today, the Italian tramways network is timid compared to other European nations. Every few years there might be some work or enhancements, but they are crumbs compared to what the system once was and to what other cities have. The talk of expansion is always in the books, but not much is done, either by political gridlock or lack of funds for one reason or the other, mostly because tramways are far from the priority of the periodic budget proposals.

About fifteen cities still have a tram network, most notably Milan with eighteen lines, Turin with ten, and Rome with six.

In everyday life and culture

Trams were a common sight for many people living between the late 1800s up until the 1950s, as the tramway network crisscrossed all the major cities, many of their peripheries, and were also found in some tourist areas. Urban planners designed boulevards, roads, and sometimes even entire neighborhoods with tramways’ networks as one of the parameters.

Public transportation was (and still is) a stress-free and inexpensive way to move around the city. It provided jobs, supported countless commuting workers, and didn’t pollute nearly as much as its archnemesis, the car. Travel time allowed for conversation or reading. Bus stops were small centers of social life with vendors, newsstands, and a lot of chatter.

Trams haven’t really received a cosmetic overhaul and people like it that way. The trams in function are in the form and shape as the first time they operated. Timber interiors and all-around glazing are two constant features, such as this Milan tram from 1928. Photo by lhoon.

The major cities known for their tramways were Milan, Turin, and Rome, but cities such as Naples and Florence didn’t shy away. In these famous cities, the trolleys were an everyday element and since they were (and are) hotspots for Italians and foreign tourists alike, it probably was part of the reason why they became embedded in common knowledge and popular culture.

The setting of Rome especially evoked a stereotypically Italian atmosphere. There are quite a few black-and-white movies that portray the tram in several scenes and even have climactic moments set in or near a tram. Common is the view, quite appealing for an urban shot, of two trams going the opposite ways at a crossroad. Another is a streetcar ringing its recognizable bell to prompt a crowd to move out of the way.

This is the typical controller station. Very little is needed to controll and guide the tram: speed lever, break lever, doors buttons. Photo by lhoon.

Notable movies are: Ladri di Biciclette (‘Bicycle Thieves’) from 1948; Il Cammino della Speranza (‘Path of hope’) from 1950; the internationally acclaimed Gli uomini, che Mascalzoni… (‘What Scoundrels Men Are!‘) from 1932; and also the internationally acclaimed I Soliti Ignoti (‘Big Deal on Madonna Street‘) from 1956, with an Oscar nomination.

A survival standing out

Perhaps the most original Italian tram, definitely of the surviving ones, is the Tram de Opcina (Tram di Opicina, ‘Tram of Opicina’) in Trieste, Friulia-Venezia Giulia. Started in 1902, It is a historic and panoramic suburban tramway connecting the city center at sea level to the town of Villa Opicina on top of the hill.

It is unique not only in Italy but also in Europe. Its route is a hybrid of tramway and funicular railway because the uphill section is about 0.5 miles (800 meters) but with a gradient of 26%. Quite steep. In this section, the trolley car is assisted by carri-scudo (‘rack locomotives’) which either push it up or hold it in the descent.

The tram coaches are historic. The exterior is the iconic blue with white rims, with a simple and angular shape. Internally, plain yet well-kept and curated interiors include the timber seats placed in front of the windows, which run the whole perimeter of the structure. The driver’s cabin is barely wide enough to fit the conductor and is mostly glazed too, therefore being the children’s favorite spot to stand at.

The iconic blue tram of Trieste with the iconic orange rack locomotive. Photo by Klaus Fohel.

The route is very suggestive too. I know this for a fact because I’ve ridden in it quite a few times. The tram departs from one of the main squares and meeting points for young and older people alike, Piazza Oberdan. It shortly arrives at the small yet trafficked Piazza di Scorcola, at the base of the hill. Here, it attaches to the rack locomotive which pushes it up the hill. The route is very interesting because it is very narrow, at some points passing less than six feet (1.8 meters) from some of the houses, and very green. Once on top of the hill, it detaches from the locomotive and rides for about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) completely surrounded by dense vegetation which bit by bit presents clearings with direct views of the wide-open gulf. This is very visible once it arrives at the Obelisco di Opicina monument. From here, it shortly arrives in Villa Opicina.

The Tram de Opcina is part of the Triestini (inhabitants of Trieste) popular culture in various ways, especially with the goliardic tune singing about an accident that happened shortly after its inauguration in 1902. While descending the hill, the locomotive malfunctions and the tram plunges into a fortunately empty house, destroying it. Luckily, of the only three people in the tram, only the conductor reported a minor injury (he lived to 101 years old). Nevertheless, given the bad timing of the accident, the song begins with the verse “E anche el tram de Opcina xe nato disgrazià,” translated as ‘Even the tram of Opicina was born unlucky’.

Trieste’s tram along its ascent. A sweeping view of the city is in the background and the strip of sea is at the horizon. Photo by Nol Alders.

Since 2016, the tram hasn’t been running for one reason or the other. One trolley car is in Piazza di Scorcola. Another one might be there at the terminal of Piazza Oberdan. It might not be running, but it’s still there, in the main square, among the gatherings, the conversations, the stories, the aperitivi, the school runs of another generation of Triestini.