A blaze at one of Rome's railway stations Sunday forced cancellation or long delays for trains along the nation's major north-south routes passing through the capital, AP reported. Fire officials and the state railways said the blaze began before dawn Sunday in a machine room in Tiburtina station, on the eastern end of the capital. By afternoon, firefighters were still hosing down flames and thick smoke, although Mayor Gianni Alemanno said the blaze was under control. No injuries were reported. Fire and railway officials said the cause of the blaze could not yet be determined since efforts to extinguish it are still being carried out. Only two rail lines passing through the station are open, state railways said. Neither of those lines include the high-speed trains running between Milan and Rome or Naples which pass through the station but don't stop there en route to the capital's main rail hub, Termini Station. The main stations in Milan and Rome posted delays of at least several hours for the long-distance trains that were still running. At least one high-speed train that left Milan made it only as far south as Florence, where passengers were told the train would not continue to Rome. Trains departing from Rome's Termini station and headed toward Naples and other points south were running because those routes don't pass through Tiburtina.
