About this journey

Pisa Centrale is one of the major railway junctions of Tuscany, serving several long-distance routes including the Pisa–La Spezia–Genoa line followed here by an FS class E.402 locomotive. The present station building replaced the older Leopolda station, inaugurated in 1844, following a development plan approved on 23 March 1871. Like much of Italy's rail infrastructure, it was severely damaged during World War II and subsequently rebuilt.

At the northern end of the journey, Genova Piazza Principe is among Italy's most historically layered terminals. Designed by architect Alexander Mazzucchetti, construction began in 1853 and the station was inaugurated in 1860. Its original building featured a single-span steel and glass roof covering ten platforms — a roof later dismantled during World War II to extract its metal. A tunnel connecting Piazza Principe with Brignole station opened in 1872, and electrification arrived on 15 May 1916 at 3,300 V AC three-phase at 15 Hz, a system that was eventually converted to the current 3,000 V DC standard, with the Genoa–Turin line completing that transition between 1962 and 1964. An underground suburban connection opened in 1993 added a further station beneath the piazza. Two termini shaped by the same history of destruction and reconstruction frame this coastal run between Tuscany and Liguria.