Verona Porta Nuova is the main railway station of Verona, Italy. It is one of the two stations serving central Verona; the other station, Verona Porta Vescovo, is located at the east of the city. It is situated at Piazzale XXV Aprile ("25 April") at the south of the city centre. The station is a 20-minute walk (approximately 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi)) or 10-minute bus ride from Arena di Verona. The station was opened in 1852 by the Austrian Empire's Südbahn and, after its transfer to Italy, has substantially been rebuilt between 1910 and 1922. Following the destruction by allied bombings during the Second World War, the present building was reconstructed between 1946 and 1949. Verona Porta Nuova is a major cross-junction station in Italy: the north–south Brenner Railway connecting Austria and Bologna meets the east–west Milan-Venice railway. The north–south route has been classified by the European Union as Trans-European Network (TEN) Berlin-Palermo Railway Axis. The station handles 25 million passengers annually.
History
Bern-im-Wälsch under Austria The first train to arrive at Verona Porta Nuova was driven by the locomotive Verona on the newly built railway from Venice which crossed River Adige (River Etsch). The initial station building was a temporary wooden structure; it was replaced in 1852 by a small masonry building. The masonry, however, had an odd shape: a part of its front had eight arched openings, which went further forward than the other part with only three. Upon its opening, Verona Porta Nuova was less important than Porta Vescovo, which was located near a major Austrian military camp. At that time, Verona, called Bern-im-Wälsch, was one of the Austrian Empire's main military strongholds with a capacity of 120,000 troops. The Porta Nuova station was initially used only by two of the three classes of passenger trains then in the region: "omnibus" and "mixed" trains. It did not handle the fastest, most expensive "direct" trains or offer any baggage service.
Network Extension In 1853, a single-track line became operational from Verona to Porto Mantovano (Mantua). In the same year, the Austrian Empire began construction of the Brenner Railway over the Brenner Pass at 1,371 m (4,498 ft), connecting County of Tyrol and Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia. The Brenner Railway was among Austria's first trans-alpine heavy railways along with the now defunct Franzensfeste-Marburg Railway (Fortezza in Italy and Maribor in Slovenia). In 1854, the Venice-Verona Railway began westward extension towards Brescia and Bergamo. In 1859, the Brenner Railway from Verona reached Bozen. In 1867, the entire Brenner Railway was completed and connected Verona to Innsbruck over the Brenner Pass.
Network transfer to Italy After Austria's defeat in the Austro-Prussian War (1866), in which Italy sided with Prussia over territorial promise of Venetia, ownership of the Brenner Railway south of Ahl-am-Etsch was transferred to Italy. In 1873, Verona-Modena railway crossed River Mincio and reached Mantua. Extension to Modena was completed in 1874, connecting this railway to Milan-Bologna mainline. In 1877, a railway line between Verona and Rovigo opened. With the absorption of Veneto into Italy in 1866, the Milan-Verona-Venice Railway came under the management of Upper Italian Railways. The size of Porta Vescovo was no longer sufficient in handling rail traffic; Porta Nuova was therefore designated as the main station of Verona. In 1900, the building was temporarily enlarged with a central wooden building, while projects were being developing for the new station. Architects initially envisaged the station comprising six platforms with additional tracks for the storage of rolling stock and for freight train operations.
First Reconstruction (1910s) Work on reconstructing the new station building, designed by the architect Dini, began in 1910 and was almost complete in 1913, albeit in a preliminary form. The proposed building would be 114 m (374 ft) long and 20 m (66 ft) high, contain a central dome and two smaller buildings on its side, and hoist a canopy along its facade. The central section would host the ticket office and luggage facility; there would be a waiting room on the left was and a buffet the right. Offices would occupy the second floor. These plans, however, were not well-received among the Veronese. By early 1915, the new freight facilities were already in operation, including the commissioning of a large goods yard and locomotive depot. The outbreak of the First World War halted reconstruction work of the station. The formal re-opening, therefore, was delayed until 22 March 1922. The re-opened station's interior was decorated with mosaics by the master mosaic artist, Amedeo Mantellato, of Venice. In the 1920s, a track connection was built between the Brenner line and the goods yard. In 1924, a more direct line to Bologna, Verona-Bologna railway, was inaugurated. The route diverts to the east from the Verona-Mantua line and bypasses Mantua and Modena. In the 1930s, a new depot for locomotives was added to the storage facilities. Electrification of the lines around Verona was completed in 1941.
Second Reconstruction (post-1945)
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