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Once upon a time there was the railway, with its places, its environment, its atmosphere; in one word: its signs.
Signs of a railway are therefore the workshop, where the just repainted loco appears; the depot, where engines rest side by side; the small and tidy station with its crossover track, where two railcars keep their appointment; the great arches of Milan Central Station, where every train seems ready for an official portrait; and furthermore: the historical routes of the 18th century, like the Giovi line, which was revolutionary when it was built; the presence of the track inside the city, along the San Remo promenade, or even in the tangled suburbs of a large city, where the railway finds its way to the countryside.
Signs of the railway are the locos waiting to be pulled down, like the last threephase engines at the beginning of the 80's, as well as the locos that have been travelling for half a century - the E.626, the E.636 - which still seem to bring the sign of their history into the present days.
Signs are the Centoporte, probably the most typical Italian coaches; the "X" type, with their essential design; the wonderful Elettrotreni, like the Settebello, whose withdrawing, or even pulling down, is really a thing that cries out for vengeance. A sign is finally the steam traffic, which is considered in the last photos, with the special trains of the present days as well as with the very last regular services, 20 years ago.
But the railway is even more! There probably does not exist another technological object that is so suitable to appear within a natural landscape; that is able to combine and bring it the technical requirements and the style of the human talent; that becomes the completing and complementary element of the natural context in which it is appearing; that interacts very closely with urban planning, although in the strict sense it is not a part of this discipline. That has all these features together. That's why whatever museum seems not to suit a loco: in a museum it has lost its world!
In the last two decades I've been a witness of the Italian railway and of its evolution. I followed its playing with nature, feeling half as an explorer, half as a pilgrim; I photographed its signs in the different Italian landscapes, in some of them with more attention and affection. What follows is a report of this, brought into the essential lines of black & white photography.
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