Monday 23 April 2012

Looking over the river Lambro towards the rear of the Centro Studi at the old Innocenti factory on a typically gloomy November day in Milano. Click on the photo to enlarge it and you can clearly see the name still on the back of the building. The one from the front is long gone as can be seen in the previous post. This building is in good condition, wouldn't it make a great place for a Lambretta Museum!?!? The building seems to be currently used as a construction site office for the apartment tower developments which are to the right of this shot and which cover most of the older part of the site closest to Lambrate FS and the centre of Milan.

Tuesday 17 April 2012


One of the most interesting buildings still standing at the old Innocenti factory in the Lambrate area of Milan is the Centro Studi or Design Centre. Standing next to the River Lambro and facing towards Via Rubattino it is quite a lovely setting with the tree covered car park area out the front. The rear overlooks the Parco Maserati that was created when the freeway went through. Interesting that they called it Maserati (they built Maserati cars at the factory under DeTomaso's stewardship) and not Innocenti or Lambretta. History whitewashed again! The view was not so nice when the factory actually operated as shown in the model - the back of the Centro Studi overlooked the electricity sub station which furnished the plant with it's power needs.

Tuesday 10 April 2012


Curved rail line running into the building closest to the Auto Strada at the Via Rubatino end. The location is circled in the model shot. I have never seen photos of the rail operations in action at the Innocenti factory but they must have been quite complex judging by the remaining evidence. If anyone has any photos of this rail infrastructure in action at the Lambretta factory I would love to see them!

Tuesday 3 April 2012


Enlarged view of the Factory model on display at Vittorio Tessera's museum clearly shows the rail lines as they were intended to be built. You can see the line running into the factory building at lower right along with many other lines running around the site. I still find it incredible that such a massive industrial complex was allowed to fall into disrepair. Thanks for nothing British Leyland!

Rail line running through one of the buildings in the old Innocenti Factory. As well as the branch line running from the goods shed to the main line at Lambrate (see prevsious post), there were other lines which ran around the factory. The large buildings which remain all have these huge openings at each side where a rail line runs joining the 4 buildings. This is at their northern end close to the Innse tower and the goods shed however there is another at the other end of the building.

Sunday 1 April 2012


Follow the road from the rail line in a straight line away from the city centre and you pop out here. Looking out under the freeway flyover towards the Innse tower with one of the dilapidated factory buildings on the right. Note the large doorway in the side of the building. These allowed direct access for more train lines which ran through the factory buildings. I assume these allowed componants to be moved from one section of the complex (foundry, paint shop etc) to the production lines.

The only remaining tracks of the branch line that ran from the main railway line to the Innocenti Factory. Did your Lambretta run down this line on it's way to the dealer? The photo at left shows where the line curved to join the main line near Lambrate FS. The photo on the right is looking away from the main line toward the factory. You can see the bridge where the Autostrada runs through the factory in the distance. This road is the one that has been extended past the Innse water tower and this rail line originally led into the shed in the photo in the last post. (clicking on the photos makes them bigger to see the detail)