Today falls 71st anniversary since the opening of the first subway in Italy: the Metro B in Rome. Originally designed in the 1930s, its construction was postponed several times due to the Second World War, finally being inaugurated on February 9, 1955.
The first real metropolitan line on the Peninsula was therefore built in Capitalalthough in Naples an underground railway service called “Metropolitana FS” had been active since 1925. From a technical point of view, however, Rome’s Metro B is the first to meet all the infrastructural criteria to be considered such.
As anticipated, the first projects relating to Rome’s Metro B date back to 1930s. In those years, power was in the hands of the fascist regime and the Duce’s objective was to connect the Termini station with the new E42 district (now the EUR district) which, a few years later, was supposed to host the Universal Exhibition. Precisely for this reason the initial name of the metro was E42 railway.
The arrival of the War, however, reshuffled the cards on the table and the priorities soon became different: for this reason the work was interrupted and those few tunnels already built were used by the population as air raid shelters.
In the 1948three years after the end of the conflict, work resumed and the work was completed only in 1955. The result was a line approximately 11.3km with 10 stops along the main points of interest of the city, such as the station Termsthe Colosseum, the Basilica of San Paolo and the Magliana district. The February 9, 1955 in the presence of the President of the Republic Luigi Einaudi and of the cardinal vicar of Rome Clemente Micara the official inauguration was held, while the opening to the public was set for the following day.
An interesting aspect is that at the time it was simply called “Metropolitana”: the name Line B it will only be established in 1980, after the opening of the line A.
In any case, although Line B may seem ancient to us, it is good to consider the date of its opening in the right perspective. In fact, if we look at the situation outside national borders we see how a New York the first subway was inaugurated in 1904 while a London even in 1863. Therefore, also due to the War, Italy obtained its first subway almost a century later than other countries.
