While the Porta Sempione yard was still under construction, in 1879 two short-haul lines were opened, which would be of enormous importance for the industrialisation of the Como, Varese and Brianza area. These are the Milan-Saronno and Milan-Erba sections, run by the Società Anonima Ferrovie Nord Milano.
The two lines converge at the station of Milano Nord Bovisa; shortly thereafter the line crosses the Milan-Turin line at Ghisolfa. In 1880, the Librera Transito yard was built, connected to Bovisa station and the Milan-Turin line: can a railway yard be considered poetry? And why not, if we make the effort to remember it not as a “non place”, as nothing more than the sterile tool of a points system connecting different railway lines, but as the unflagging heart powering the movement of a system, which, if interpreted through its figures today, would likely be an indispensable component of modern infrastructure.