At the new permanent exhibition “Oltrepassare” dedicated to the Alpine passes and railway tunnels, inaugurated on Friday 28 October at the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, visitors will also find the Mont Cenis base tunnel. The itinerary reinvents the Museum’s historic railway pavilion and invites visitors to explore the railway infrastructure from a socio-historical and technological point of view and to reflect on its evolution with new development trajectories and perspectives.

Visitors will cross the mountains looking through the windows of a train and they’ll see historical and contemporary objects, 3D animations and scenic images. There will be also activities for the little ones, who will have the chance to push miniature trains through a labyrinth of coloured tubes and build a tunnel with their own hands.

From the window overlooking the railway crossing between Piedmont and Savoy, visitors will discover the history of this passage, from the drill with which the historic Fréjus tunnel was excavated at the end of the 19th century to the cores of the geological drillings in the Alps between France and Italy to build the new Lyon-Turin base tunnel. Videos will show visitors the peculiarities of this new project – the longest railway tunnel under construction in the world – focusing on geology, technologies and safety.

The renovation of the pavilion is part of the three-year project MULM – Il Museo più Lungo del Mondo (The Longest Museum in the World) – developed within the Interreg Italy-Switzerland Cross-border Cooperation Programme.

The visit to the new permanent exhibition is included in the Museum’s admission ticket. It is possible to go by themselves or with a guide.