Palermo, 5 May 2000
The Italian Army Auxiliary Military Corps of the Association of the Italian Knights of the Order organised an exhibition in Palermo and Messina almost one century after their intervention in the disastrous earthquake in Sicily and Calabria.
The Medical Train of the Order stopped at the train station in Palermo on 28 April and at the Messina station on 29 and 30 April, in memory of the relief operation carried out on the occasion of the Messina earthquake of 28 December 1908, in which the Military Corps took part with 28 wagons for a total of 192 beds and a Field Hospital of 125 beds.

This Train is provided with modern and advanced medical equipment and operates as a mobile Medical Centre including wards and day hospital, operating theatres, specialist departments and test laboratories. The Train is therefore able to face critical situations both in case of natural disasters and in peace-keeping operations in Italy and abroad.

The exhibition nature, also historical, of this trip of the Hospital Train of the Order in Sicily, in the presence of the Grand Chancellor of the Order, Ambassador Count Don Carlo Marullo di Condojanni, the Commander of the Military Corps, Lieutenant General Mario Prato, and the highest territorial authorities of the Order, allowed the local population and the government and religious authorities of the Region and Provinces to observe not only its operating potential, but also the "hope trips" made by the Train on the western war fronts in the two world wars, treating and saving thousands of soldiers and veterans, and thus receiving the highest appreciation from the Italian authorities.