Not to deny that Mussolini lied but in this case it was the old trains schedules that lied. He did indeed make the trains run on time but he did it by a very simple trick. If the 10:12 train always arrived 30 minutes late (and it did) he just changed the schedule to read 12:42. The trains still took the same time to arrive but no one was waiting for it to arrive as 10:12.
You are correct on the change...Continental did the same thing back in the day...also, Clinton did the same thing for the post office by removing the clocks...wasn’t clinton...but the new postmaster general during his reign.