The contest launched to choose the names of the two new TBMs that will excavate Lot 1A Battipaglia–Romagnano of the new Salerno–Reggio Calabria High-Speed Line concluded on November 7. The most voted for names were Leucosia and Ligea, inspired by the sirens of Greek mythology who, according to legend, dwelled along the shores of the Bay of Salerno. 

The name Leucosia (Greek “Λευκωσία”, Leukōsía) means “the white one” or “the radiant one.” In mythology, she was one of the sirens, daughters of the river god Acheloos and the muse Melpomene. Like her sisters, she had the body of a woman and a bird (in the earliest versions) or of a fish (in later classical and Mediterranean traditions). Leucosia was said to inhabit the coasts of Cilento, and according to some authors, after throwing herself into the sea in despair for having failed to enchant Odysseus, her body was carried by the waves to the island that took her name—identified with Punta Licosa, near Castellabate (SA). 

The name Ligea (Greek “Λίγεια”, Ligéia) means “clear-voiced” or “melodious.” According to the most widespread versions of the myth, Ligea lived in the waters off the Calabrian and Campanian coasts, and after her defeat by Odysseus or Orpheus, her body was found on the shores of Terina, an ancient city on the Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria, near present-day Lamezia Terme. For this reason, the legend of Ligea is often associated both with the Sea of Salerno and with the coasts of Tropea and Nicotera, symbolically linking the entire southern Tyrrhenian shoreline. 

The TBMs Leucosia and Ligea equipped with a cutter head measuring 13.46 m in diameter, together with Partenope - already in operation since last February for the excavation of the Saginara tunnel – will drive the  tunnels on the 35 km-long Battipaglia - Romagnano section (Lot 1A), including 20 tunnels and 19 viaducts. 

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