In tram da Roma ai Castelli. La linea dei Castelli Romani e lo sviluppo della Capitale e degli abitati circostanti nel Novecento.

In the nineteenth century Rome is described as an unhealthy and malarial place, framed by the salubrious and pleasant localities of the so called “Castelli Romani”, that, however, still in the middle of the century many Romans could not reach, due to the limited and expensive service offered by the only means of transport available: the public horse-drawn omnibus. After the unsuccessful attempts to make up for this deficiency with a steam tram, that would have to integrate the Rome-Frascati papal railway line (1857), to make a change for the realization of an efficient tramway line for the Castelli is the advent of electric traction, used by Werner von Siemens at the Berlin industrial exhibition of 1879 to feed a first, small, locomotive, and then spread with the “trolley” system in major American and European cities. To the S.T.F.E.R. (Società Tramvie Ferrovie Elettriche of Rome), Roman company concessionary of the line, founded November 29, 1899 by the French “Thomson Houston Internatio-nal Electric Co.” will be linked the history of Roman tramway transport up to the eighties of the twentieth century. The reconstruction of the construction phases of the Castelli Romani tramline and its artefacts is a fascinating journey, in time and space, to which intertwine the urban development of the young Capital and the surrounding inhabitants, and the evolution of railway engineering.