The first railway in Italy was the Napoli-Portici line, built in 1839 to connect the royal palace of Naples to the seaside. After the creation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, a project was started to build a network from the Alps to Sicily, in order to connect the country.
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After the Second World War, Italy started to repair the damaged railways, and built nearly 20,000 km (12,000 mi) of new tracks.