The Railway Station

At the end of Via de Larderel and Viale Carducci, the facade of the railway station.
Alla fine di via de Larderel e viale Carducci, la facciata della stazione ferroviaria.

Railway Faces

In 1910, when they built the railway station of Livorno Centrale, it was probably fashionable to put a series of faces like this one on the side of the platforms roof.

Smaller and sometimes not yet repainted heads are placed on the side of all the platforms roofs.

The bigger faces are present only on the elevated roof of the first track. By the way, this is the train that was carrying cieldequimer of Versailles Daily Photo and her friend Catherine to Livorno.

See also: Livorno Centrale - Livorno Train Station

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Lampo, the traveling dog

During our chat in Florence, our friend Beata told us of a book that is very popular with kids in Poland: the story of Lampo, the traveling dog. I didn't know the story, but when later I asked my son he said that he was well aware of it. He also remember that my father told him about having met the dog himself.

In the early 1950s a dog jumped off a freight train at the station of Campiglia Marittima and was practically adopted by the assistant stationmaster Elvio Barlettani, who called him Lampo (Lightning). Before making Campiglia his home, Lampo had stayed for a while in the station of Livorno, but when a less benevolent stationmaster called the dogcatcher, a railway worker flung him into a freight car heading south.
From Campiglia, a busy railway junction, Lampo was able to catch a train to anywhere. He rode only passenger trains, hiding under a seat when he heard the conductor coming. They say that Lampo visited almost every station within 300 kilometers of Campiglia, becoming a well-known presence.

Lampo slept in the station, but in the morning he would jump on the local train to Piombino to walk Mirna Barlettani to school, only to take the train back to Campiglia. In the afternoon, Lampo rode the train back to Piombino and saw Mirna home from school. Then he returned to Campiglia.
One day the dog got caught in a door and the train had to be stopped to release him. This event was witnessed by an inspector and it was ordered that the dog must go: they decided to put Lampo on a freight train to the far south, with instructions to let him go in open country, far from any station. After five months, ill and beaten, Lampo was back. He became famous and ended up on national and international newspapers. He was also filmed by a few TV crews.

[Photo by LepoRello, Wikipedia]

A train passenger, who claimed to recognize the dog, said that Lampo had been accidentally stranded in the port of Livorno from an American ship. It seems that the dog was really fascinated by the sea.
Lampo, quite old, was eventually killed by a train in 1961, but a statue still remembers him at the station of Campiglia Marittima, where he spent so many years.

Elvio Barlettani wrote a book about his story: “Lampo, il cane viaggiatore” and it was also published in English as “Lampo, the Traveling Dog”.

External links: Dog on a train - La Dolce Vita di Lampo (The Nature of the Beast)
- Lampo, the travelling dog (Cover, Look and Learn)

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Livorno Train Station

The facade of the Livorno Centrale railway station

The railway station in the 1910s

(Postcard digitized from the collection of Antonio Cantelli)

Search labels: postcard
See also: Livorno Centrale

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Livorno Centrale

With the station of Ardenza now closed, Livorno has four still active railway stations: Centrale, Calambrone, Antignano and Quercianella-Sonnino. Calambrone has no passenger traffic and only local trains call at Antignano and Quercianella-Sonnino, so we are left with the main station: “Livorno Centrale”.The new station was built in 1910 to position Livorno on the Genoa-Rome line, replacing the old “San Marco” station. The main building faces “Piazza Dante” and its public gardens, from where “Viale Carducci” and then “Via Grande” form an axis straight to the “Porto Mediceo”.The building was recently renovated and is a terminus for several local bus lines. From here you can travel by train to Pisa in fifteen minutes, to Florence in one hour and twenty minutes and to Rome in three hours (two with an Eurostar).

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San Marco

We already know that Livorno has a Venice, so what about a “San Marco” (Saint Mark), with his winged lion?This is the other quarter resulting from the urbanization of part of the “Fortezza Nuova” during the first decades of the 17th century. “Porta San Marco” (Saint Mark Gate) is one of the few gates still standing after the demolition the Leopoldine Walls.The first railway station of Livorno, was built here in 1840: it was the terminus of the “Leopolda” Railway to Pisa and Florence. The “Leopolda”, then “San Marco”, was the main station of Livorno until “Livorno Centrale” was built in 1910. Its building still stands just outside the gate, almost completely abandoned.Through the gate, now a pedestrian zone, you can see the whole length of “Via Solferino” straight to the “Fortezza Nuova”. In 1849 the Austrians, after a short siege, broke through the city walls through a breach here, despite a strenuous defence by the brave Livornesi.

See also: The Austrians Are Coming

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