Even though today it seems incredible, there was a time when the marble of Carrara was carried down from the mountain on a steep iron path used by locomotives and carriages of the Private Marble Railway of Carrara. The marble railway was a real masterpiece of engineering that in just over 10 kilometres connected the marble basins (its highest point was 445 metres a.s.l) to the port of Marina di Carrara.
A remarkable work of engineering and architecture, considering that along the twenty-one kilometre track there were fifteen tunnels crossing three of Carrara’s four marble basins that stretched for over four kilometres in the heart of the mountains, sixteen bridges and viaducts, many of which still exist today, and the connection to the port with the tracks reaching the docks to facilitate loading onto ships.