At a speed of 48 kilometers per hour, the “Vesuvio,” a Bayard steam locomotive built in Newcastle, pulled its trailer from Porta Nolana to the Granatello station in Portici. A royal trailer, since King Ferdinand II and his wife Maria Teresa of Austria traveled on the 9 carriages, accompanied by 180 officers and soldiers and 48 guests.
The railway tracks had been built at the Pietrarsa factory, the Royal Bourbon Mechanical and Pyrotechnic Workshop near Portici, where steam engines for ships, grenades, and cannons were normally produced. And until 1861, the technicians of Pietrarsa were the only ones to follow an innovative method for manufacturing the tracks patented by the Englishman Thomas Richard Guppy: the “Puddler” system, which managed to produce carbon-free iron.
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