In November 1839 the Austrian Emperor
Ferdinand I of Austria authorized construction of the railroad by the Holzhammer Company, owned by the aristocrat Giovanni Putzer. Planning was by the Italian engineer Giulio Sarti. In one year the railway was built with two stations, the Porta Nuova Station in
Milan and the
Monza Station. It had rails mounted on large cubic stone sunk into the ground and gauge was maintained from time to time with transverse bars. The line was opened for service on 18 August 1840. The line was straight and the movement of trains was supervised by signalmen in high masonry towers along the line who communicated the movement of trains with optical and acoustic signals. Trains operated four return trips each day—which was soon increased to six—with a time of about 20 minutes. The railway equipment included three English
steam locomotives built by
George Rennie and
Robert Stephenson, named
Lombardia,
Milano and
Lambro, and 21
passenger cars. The terminal stations were at Porta Nuova in Milan and Monza and there was an intermediate station at
Sesto San Giovanni. By the end of 1840, 150,000 passengers had been carried. The original station was replaced by a new station nearby also called
Porta Nuova in 1850, which was in turn replaced by a new through station called
Milano Centrale in 1864. The original
Milano Centrale station was replaced by the modern terminal station of
Milano Centrale, built by
Ulisse Stacchini between 1924-31. However, most passenger trains have been routed to
Milano Porta Garibaldi (opened in 1963 near the old
Porta Nuova stations) since the opening of a tunnel connecting it with the Monza line in 1966. The line now forms part of the
Milan–Chiasso line; the
line to Lecco connects Monza to the
Valtellina region. ==References==