On the dashboard of the time machine, the date indicates May 23 1981, 9.30 a.m. I go down and enter a room of the Magazzini del Cotone in Genoa where the annual assembly takes place of the Association of Agents Maritime Brokers Agents Aircraft - Genoa (Assagenti). The theme of the meeting is the "Third Railway Pass. The actions to be taken until the construction of a fundamental work for the port Ligurian ".

The Terzo Valico project involves the construction of a high-speed/high-capacity railway line connects the port of Genoa to the Po Valley. It is a main section of about 53 kilometers mainly in tunnels plus interconnections in both Liguria and Piedmont. The expected expenditure is 12,000 billion lire (a figure that in 2011 it will correspond to about 6.2 billion euros).

Assagenti has appointed the company TLS Europe to examine the project and evaluate its effectiveness in the light of current and future market situation and the state of the Infrastructure. This activity was presented by the president and CEO of TLS, Carlo Camisetti, and the president of Assagenti, Giovanni Cerruti. In the "Forum of Shipping and Logistics" we publish the Cerruti's report to the assembly of Assagenti.

I'm here today because I'm interested in knowing what is the Terzo Valico and what it will be used for in the years to come until 2011, that is the year from which I started. The dissertation of Camisetti is long and detailed, but it is above all a concluding sentence to clarify the usefulness of the work: "the Terzo Valico - he explained - would not be necessary if the port of Genoa would remain only a regional port and not a European one". Because in fact, as the study motivates, the development of the rail traffic to and from the port of the Ligurian capital is possible by fully exploiting the potential of the line existing. So the Third Pass is essential basically to make Genoa a European port. "The objective - confirmed Cerruti introducing the theme of the meeting to the journalists - is to enlarge the boundaries of the port of Genoa at the heart of Europe".

Data in hand, Camisetti has shown that in thirty years, in the 2011, this scenario will still be valid (and I, as a time traveler, I can confirm the validity of the thesis). The TLS Europe study points out that in 2007, even before the the economic crisis predicted with infallible certainty around 2009, in the face of a capacity of the lines between Genoa and the Po Valley, equal to 470 trains per day, 73% saturation of the network will be reached, with 342 trains circulating daily, of which 204 freight and 138 passengers. "Saturating the line to 90% - he pointed out - there would be space for 81 more freight trains per day." Camisetti He pointed out, therefore, that already in 2010, when the port of Genoa is expected to handle over 1.7 million TEU containers, Almost 60% of this traffic (about one million TEUs) "could be be moved to rails". "With the Terzo Valico - clarified - the capacity will be able to rise to 750 trains a day".

At the end of the presentation of the study, a round table moderated by the deputy director of "Il Secolo XIX", Luigi Leone, which was attended by people who thirty years will hold important institutional roles. These include: Roberto Castelli, who in 2011 will be deputy minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Claudio Burlando, president of the Liguria Region, Alessandro Repetto, president of the Province of Genoa, Paolo Pissarello, deputy mayor of Genoa, and Luigi Merlo, President of the Port Authority of Genoa. Not that the discussion was not interesting, but these are issues that you readers of 2011 you already know and that I will therefore spare you.

A single note on the proposal to reduce the number of of the Port Authorities put forward by some of the participants. Are the difficulties and reluctance to implement an initiative of this kind. According to Deputy Minister Castelli, it will be the European Economic Community (which in the future will become European Community and later European Union) to impose on us a concentration of the Port Authorities when it decides to select ports of European importance on the basis of a volume minimum of traffic moved. At that time, Italy will have to decide whether to have a single port of European caliber or whether, by merging several port authorities, will be able to present some primary national port nuclei that move a considerable volume of traffic.

The meeting ended in an atmosphere of general concord and trust. We are just at the beginning of the boom of the 80s And today the speakers almost convinced even a distrustful person like me: the Terzo Valico seems to be indispensable and will be done. From A few years ago, the era of the container began. Already numerous ships capable of carrying several hundred of these Containers full of goods sail the seas. Genoa started with the right foot. At the beginning of the last decade, winning a few its maritime-port community has sensed that containerization would not have been an ephemeral phenomenon. In the 1981 - A testimony that the phenomenon is unstoppable - Germany's Hapag-LLoyd has taken delivery of the new Frankfurt Express which, with a capacity of 3,430 TEUs, It is the largest container ship in the world. Already ships capable of carrying 6,000 TEUs are planned.

It is a revolution that is rising from the water to land. These boxes are already running on the tracks they cross from coast to coast the prairies, deserts and urban areas of the North America. Even here in Europe we are gearing up. Genoa has including these new developments and has put its hand back on a project conceived at the beginning of the 20th century. A railway crossing, in fact. The idea is simple: to create a new line that goes beyond the Apennines by connecting the port docks to the plain.

The project was re-presented today by Assagenti and has aroused enthusiasm. "There is a climate - he said confirmed Camisetti - very proactive». The initiative sparks new hope at a time when the Deindustrialization and the decline of state shareholdings they are bringing Genoa to its knees.

The time traveler knows how things will go. I who have given the semi-deserted port and the empty factories and offices I didn't the courage to break the spell. Who would now have the guts to say to the Genoese shipping agents who will still be there in thirty years to try to convince who knows who that the Third Valico is an essential work for the port Genoese and for the economy of northern Italy?

Who would have thought, moreover, that in order to record facts and opinions, instead of projecting myself into the future as per logic, are Should we fall back into the past?

I leave the room and turn on the time machine again to go back to the May 23, 2011. The same sun, today and then, warms the capital Ligurian. Similar reflections and deductions are also made. Even now the Terzo Valico is almost a reality or still remains a chimera.

Wandering through time allows you to look at life with detachment and to realize that if in our eyes God's plan is inscrutable, even human history is incomprehensible to us. We only detect the uncertainties and record the repeated disillusionments.

I lack the courage to become a chrononaut again and go back to on board my vehicle to risk discovering that probably This article must be dated May 23, 2041.

Bruno Bellio