A Train Lost in a Tunnel in Italy, No One Can Find It

As Italian comedian Pozzetto once remarked in the film "Country Boy," "the train is always the train." The train offers a plethora of emotions, from the thousand colors of the countryside to the spectacle along the sea coast, the curiosity of approaching a big city station, and the suspense of entering a dark tunnel. Personally, I find it a perfect way to travel, sitting there, doing nothing, with my nose towards the world whizzing past me, in complete relaxation.

Recently, I came across the little-known mystery of a train that disappeared in a tunnel between Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy in the early 1900s. As a lover of legends and mysteries, the story has left me truly fascinated, and I hope to convey this sentiment in my account of this legendary event.

The Zanetti railway company had made an important advertising campaign for the maiden voyage of a new tourist train, consisting of the locomotive and three luxurious wagons, which would take passengers from Rome to Milan, passing through the spectacular campaigns of Lazio, Umbria, Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, and Lombardy. The train had to go through a tunnel about one kilometer long, which at the time was considered the longest tunnel ever dug in a mountain. For the maiden voyage, Zanetti had selected 100 passengers from the local upper class and members of some families of the railway company. Six other people accompanied them, including train drivers and on-board staff.

The train moved slowly along its route to allow the elegant passengers to enjoy the view to the fullest while being entertained by violinist sonatas, tantalizing treats, and champagne. Everything was going well, and the journey was proving more than satisfactory. Within a few hours, the train arrived at the tunnel. There was a small crowd both at the entrance and at the exit to see the new train go through that prodigious tunnel. The train approached amid the exultation of those present and once it entered completely into the darkness of the mountain, it never got out again. The small crowd waiting for it never saw it coming out.

After calling the police on the spot, those present entered the tunnel for inspection thinking of a sort of a breakdown, but in the darkness of that tunnel, they found nothing but two passengers in a state of shock. There was no trace of the train, and there were no signs of any accident. The staff of the railway company also inspected the section of rails without any results.

Out of fear of other accidents, that section of the railway was closed, and the Zanetti railway company employed many resources to cover up the incident. At risk was the future and the credibility of the company. But to definitively put a "stone" on this mysterious event was an aerial bombardment which during the Second World War completely blocked access to the tunnel, preventing further investigations.

A decade passed since Zanetti's disappearance when one of the relatives of the missing passengers found a strange testimony in the medieval chronicles of the Modena Monastery. This told of a satanic metal chariot, from which black smoke came out, followed by three other smaller ones. From these chariots came three servants of the devil who were beardless and dressed in strange black robes. The "servants of the devil" began knocking on the door of the monastery asking to enter, but the strong bolts, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary invoked by the prayers of the monks, prevented the sacrilege. Could it have been our missing train that traveled in time to the Middle Ages? Since then, there has been no further mention of the Zanetti and its passengers, and it seems that the manuscript with the chronicles was destroyed during the Messina earthquake in 1908.

The Ukrainian newspaper "Gloria di Sebastopol" brought up the history of the 1911 Zanetti Rome-Milan, which in its August 12, 1992 issue published the article "Ghost train on the roads of Ukraine," which quoted:

"A ghost of three carriages appeared at the intersection of the duty officer Elena Spiridonovna Chebrets... The train with the curtains tightly closed, the doors open, and the empty cockpit moved absolutely silently, crushing the chickens that walked along the street."