Roma-Lido turns 100: birthday with new trains and two new stations

News for Rome-Lido: Tor di Valle and Acilia sud will open by the end of 2024. The new trains will arrive from the beginning of 2025

Roma-Lido turns 100 years old. And to celebrate, even if the gifts will arrive in a few months, the Lazio Region, Astral and Cotral, the two companies that deal with the management and maintenance of the infrastructure, are giving her the renovated Tor di Valle station and the brand new Acilia sud station, both open by the end of 20248 new trains renewed by the Jubilee, of which 5 are already in service with the new blue livery, and 20 new trains from the first months of 2025, when the first vehicle will be delivered.

The innovations were announced during the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the work. We start with the two new stations: “By the end of the year we will inaugurate two stations of the Rome-Lido, Tor di Valle and South Acilia. For the latter we are receiving the delegation from the Municipality of Rome to build the pedestrian bridge to connect it to the other side. I believe that we will be able to inaugurate that too by the end of the year” explained the sole director of Astral, Antonio Mallamo.

Then it will be the turn of the new trains. “The works on the armament, carried out by RFI, are concluded – explained the president of Cotral, Amalia Colaceci – The ones on the airline have just left and will last 18 monthswhile for the new trains the order has been postponed to 2025 but the first example will arrive at the beginning of 2025. Then, after pre-operation and ministerial testing, production will continue with one train per month. Five trains with the new Cotral livery have returned from the general overhaul, also redone internally and since November we have no longer had any complaints (as happened in the past, ed.). The service is still 20 minutes but at peak times it drops to 10 minutes. We can start to raise our heads because investments are starting to produce their effects. The entire fleet will be overhauled and efficient in time for the Jubilee.”

And while the regional transport councilor, Fabrizio Gheraremembered having been “personally in the Caserta factories where the trains are produced to check the situation” the vice-president of the Lazio Region, Roberta Angelilli has traced the moment in which the line, once all the works have been completed and all the trains put into service, will reach its maximum functionality. “In the next two years – two and a half years – he said – the line will return to its full efficiency” with subway frequencies, up to a train every 6 minutes. And this, Ghera recalled, “also thanks to the new signaling and the new trains, the 20 that will go on the Rome-Lido, without forgetting the 12 for the Rome-Viterbo”.

THE EXHIBITION

Meanwhile to celebrate in the headquarters of the marine engineering faculty of the Roma Tre campus in Ostia one was inaugurated photographic exhibition on the history of the infrastructure. And to reach it, the regional and municipal institutions and the leaders of Cotral and Astral made a journey from Porta San Paolo to the coast on one of the newly overhauled trains, regularly in service. The exhibition contains dozens of images of the line, starting with photos of its construction in 1924, with the workers, for example, busy laying the first stone or the foundations of the San Paolo station. Then there are the images of the visit of Giolitti and King Vittorio Emanuele II to the Ostia station and that of the inaugural train. There is also a section dedicated to all the trains in service during these 100 years.

The history of the railway, recalls Cotral, begins in 1899when the first project to connect the capital to the Ostia coast was presented by Stfer, with the idea of ​​creating a railway line that would facilitate access to the sea and contribute to the tourist and residential development of the area. After several design revisions, construction work officially began in December 1918, in a period of great turmoil and urban development for Rome. The construction of the railway, strongly desired by the engineer Paolo Orlando, required the use of advanced construction techniques and the commitment of numerous workers.
Finally, on 10 August 1924, the Rome – Lido di Ostia railway was inaugurated.

For the centenary, in addition to the exhibition, a communication campaign was launched, also on board the trains, to remember the history of the line, new displays on the platform, a book and artistic lighting on the facade of the historic Porta San Paolo station. The bloggers of Odissea Quotidiana, experts in the history of Roman public transport, will finally accompany visitors to discover the line with trips from Porta San Paolo to Ostia.