The Rail-Guided Vehicles Industry in Italy, 1861–1913: The Burden of the Evidence

Abstract

This paper presents the first annual estimates for the rail-guided vehicles industry in post-Unification Italy. Nationally, maintenance was naturally trend-dominated, while new construction followed a Kuznets cycle; overall, maintenance exceeded new construction, while freight cars represented the largest component of the latter. The limited production of locomotives over the initial decades seems tied to high raw material costs rather than to technical inadequacy. Regionally, new construction was concentrated in the industrial triangle, and in Campania; maintenance was more widely diffused, as repair work tended to follow local traffic, but it too was largely absent from the swath of mostly Southern regions without major urban centers.

Citation

Ciccarelli, C. and Fenoaltea, S. (2012), "The Rail-Guided Vehicles Industry in Italy, 1861–1913: The Burden of the Evidence", Hanes, C. and Wolcott, S. (Ed.) Research in Economic History (Research in Economic History, Vol. 28), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 43-115. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0363-3268(2012)0000028005