The line from Brescia to Iseo was inaugurated in June 1885, although the first proposal to build a railway serving the area dates back to 1859. The conditions of the economy in the province, and concern about the technical feasibility of the work, definitely discouraged enterprises from undertaking the project. But the communities on the lake really felt the need for a modern transportation service. People realised that the railway was essential, if they were not to fall even further behind other parts of the province that already benefited from “mechanical forms of transportation”. The historical context of the construction of the Brescia-Iseo railway also presented a number of critical aspects on the shores of Lake Sebino. The 1850s were, according to the young Giuseppe Zanardelli, “a time when this miserable province lay in an area of unproven financial viability, and in the saddest, most extreme condition of poverty”.
The construction and operation of the railway line were not easy and required considerable commitment on the part of the politicians. However they managed to take advantage of a particular time in history when the railway industry was definitely the focus of much interest in the national policy of the newborn Kingdom of Italy, and, in the case at hand, to intercept a project which was much broader than we might think today. The maps reveal that the current route was not merely an extension of the Parma - Brescia line, but an essential segment of a railway line which, from La Spezia, was to cross Parma and Brescia, concluding in the heartland of Europe, with a foreseeable extension to Edolo and therefore towards the Valtellina area.