[5] The first plans for a railway linking the middle Po valley with the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian coasts began to be considered in 1860, when the Kingdom of Sardinia acquired Lombardy, Emilia and Tuscany.

Two routes were mainly considered: one between Parma and the Gulf of La Spezia passing through the Taro and Magra valleys, the other from Lucca to Reggio Emilia and Modena.

The commission set out its conclusions in a report dated 16 June 1862 (but published in 1863), which established that a line between Piacenza and La Spezia was indeed of strategic interest, and that the shortest and easiest route was the one that passed through the Taro and Magra valleys, crossing the Apennines through the Borgallo tunnel.

In 1931, the line was electrified with the three-phase AC system at 3600 V and 16.67 Hz; during the Second World War it suffered heavy damage, due to its high strategic value as an access route to the Po Valley.

[13][14] Designed from the outset to facilitate the movement of goods between the ports of the upper Tyrrhenian Sea and Northern Italy (the so-called Tyrrhenian–Brenner corridor), it is still used for this purpose.

Passenger traffic, on the other hand, consists solely of regional trains and is largely limited to commuter traffic from the two valleys to the nearby capitals; however, there are some pairs of longer-distance trains that connect the main cities of the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian coast with some important centres in Emilia and Lombardy, passing through the Fidenza hub.