14.6: Napoli infrastructure impressions

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14.6: Napoli infrastructure impressions

Back to Napoli. Public transportation impressions. I believe only Napoli lets you fully immerse into the most intense of what can be defined being the true genuine Italian animated crowd rumbling within its open mass transit spaces...

Last views of Santa Mariadi Salina before leaving....

Happy tiles ans socks

Approaching Mergellina

After hours inside those terrific hydro foils dating back from the 1950ies...

Mergellina Railway Station (Metro Line 2)

This station once had several tracks because the station represents the western feeding point of the tunnel. For reasons difficult to understand, all additional tracks and pointworks have been removed, leading only 2 through running tracks.
Nevertheless, Mergellina station itself is a fantastic 1920 style building, well renovated since the arrival of Metro Line 6 (another long story...).

I really like those platform roofs, typical for the 1920 and 30ies. Made of heavy concrete usually and refined by a cladding of Italian uniform mosaic. Another characteristic of those platform roofs was the round shaped end, which induces interesting perspectives. Of course, the supporting pylons are cladded with polished slabs, made of the most prestigious Italian rock types...

Isn't this the same graffiti icon that can be seen pretty often in Berlin?

"E vietato oltrepassare la linea gialla" - and children do it because of the many annoying acoustic messages stating not to cross the yellow line.

14.6: Napoli infrastructure impressions :

Metro 2: Europa o terzo mondo? Qui non c'è niente da scassare

Inside Metro Line 2. Line 2 one is more of a regional S-Bahn type railway than a true metro. There are some few long distance trains running through the dark cross city tunnel that when it opened in 1925 represented a modern masterpiece of Italian engineering.

Unfortunately, with time giong on, with every unhappily designed upgrade, the once great architecture got partly removed and fragmented into a dirt and unfriendly space. Things do not seem to get better right now, but some heavy infrastructure works are carried out in order to reorganize all of the tunnel feeding lines, in a hope to improve service quality. Which is horrble nowadays as well. Trains looking like Ghana imports move at walking speed, often halting for 10 minutes somewhere in their dark tunnels.

However, Napoli means endless huge works, endless changes, never seeing completion, restless transformation and no target in sight.

Line 1 art works.

Metro Line 1 is pretty well designed, the effort trying to built a friendly colorful metro system is apparent, and it mostly succeeds in its ambitions. This is a clearly positive initiative proving that even in Napoli things can become better.

Metro Line 2

First sections of Line 1 opened in 1993. Its special feature is its "loop", which it uses to climb the heights of Vomero. Eventually, the whole line will become a ring, adding Stazione Centrale and the airport to its string of stations. However, works do not seem to be in a hurry, everything requires its time ...

Metro Line 2