For many Italian emigrants, the train was the main means of transport to the major Italian and European ports of departure: Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Le Havre… From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, trains and railway stations became, like ships, the symbol of the separation suffered by families who said their farewells as they accompanied their loved ones to railway stations on their way to the embarkation ports. The emigrant Pascal D’Angelo wrote: “Hear the roar of the train – with neither mules nor horses to pull it – then the embrace of my father urging me to climb aboard”.
Following the introduction by overseas countries of policies limiting immigration after the Second World War, Italian migrants headed for new destinations in the countries of central and western Europe. Trains filled with emigrants began to cross Europe, carrying millions of Italian to Paris, Brussels, Stuttgart, Zurich...
From the 1970s, trains became the symbol of internal emigration, from the south to the industrialised north of Italy, where the main destinations were the industrial triangle of Genoa, Milan and Turin.
