The Museum of Railway Transport across the Alps, named after Aldo Miletto and known as Feralp, is at Bussoleno inside the former locomotive depot. It began as a project around the middle of 1998, from an agreement between fifteen public bodies and organisations that undertook to establish it, with the aim of documenting all the crossings of the Alpine arc, and the railway ones in particular. The choice of site was no accident: between the Susa valley, the passes and the train the bond is as old as the line.
What to see
The museum occupies the shed built after 1916, when alternating-current traction arrived: it is the part of the depot still standing. Outside and inside there are locomotives and rolling stock, looked after by the same association that runs the museum, the Feralp Team, which handles the displays, the visitors and the light maintenance of the vehicles, besides working on historic trains.
Visiting
The story of the place begins in 1867, when the first workshop was built to keep in order the heavy steam locomotives which from 1907 hauled goods trains towards France and which wore out fast. Then came the three-phase engines, such as the E.550, suited to mountain lines, and in 1961 direct current retired them: the old shed could not take the new machines, because its traverser could not move them, and it became a store.
Our editors' tip
This museum also tells the story of its own end. When the Orbassano yard opened, with a modern works, there was no longer any need for maintenance right beside the steepest stretch of the Turin-Modane line, and for Bussoleno the decline began: the locomotives assigned there grew fewer year by year. The staff tried to keep the works alive by taking on less rewarding jobs, maintaining goods wagons and making white-metal bearings for the Turin workshops. It was not enough: in 1993 the works closed. The museum stands exactly inside it, and that is why it is worth visiting slowly.