About this journey

Gravina in Puglia station sits at the edge of the Alta Murgia plateau in Apulia, where the Ferrovie Appulo Lucane — known as FAL — operates the line northward toward the Adriatic coast. The FAL network connects the three provincial capitals of Bari, Potenza and Matera, threading through a largely rural region of the Italian south. Gravina in Puglia once hosted a second railway as well: an RFI line on the Rocchetta Sant'Antonio–Gioia del Colle corridor that opened in 1891 and closed in December 2016, leaving the FAL service as the town's sole rail connection.

The Bari–Matera line, 76 kilometres in length, entered operation on 9 August 1915 under the initiative of the Società Italiana per le Strade Ferrate del Mediterraneo. More than a century later, the route underwent a significant safety upgrade when the SSC-Train Stop system — described by FAL as the highest operational safety standard, monitoring driver identification and driving style against lineside signals — was brought into service in December 2017 across 85 kilometres covering both the Bari–Matera corridor and the Altamura–Gravina section, placing the filmed route at the core of that modernisation.

From Gravina the ATR.220 Pesa Swing unit crosses the plateau landscape before descending gradually toward the Apulian plain. The route passes through Altamura before continuing across flatter agricultural terrain toward the coast. The journey concludes at Bari Centrale (fal), FAL's Bari terminus, where the plateau countryside of the Murge gives way to the urban approach of a major Adriatic city.