Accessible Travel by Train

Have you looked at the websites for the two main rail companies in Italy - Italia and Trenitalia? They both have information for travellers with disabilities and what help is available, you may need to make traveling arrangements in advance. You are traveling on major routes where the stations should be more accessible and have elevators where there are stairs. I don’t recall stairs at Roma Termini, nor at Venezia St Lucia though there are shallow steps down to the Vaparetto piers. Make sure you use the Italian names for the cities you are visiting when looking at the websites.

Google traveling with a wheelchair, lots of info in various articles and blogs that might be helpful for you.

I travel with a heavy wheelchair and have been very impressed with the Trenitalia SalaBlu services. They provide assistance, including providing a lift to get on and off of the trains. This can be arranged via their app atleast 24 before your ride. But I found it easiest the visit the SalaBlu office at the main Roma Termini train station atleast a day before my trip from Rome to Florence. They were extremely helpful inmaking reservations for a train that have available wheelchair or scooter space. If room is only available in the more expensive train cars, you will get a reduced fare for you and your travel assistant/partner. I have found that the train stations are always accessible but very crowded. So I allow extra time to navigate. Unfortunately, many elevators in train or metro stations are broken, but not in the main train stations like Rome, Florence or Venice.
Know that if you book a hotel with an elevator in many Italian cities, the elevators start 7-14 steps up. Also many elevators are too small to hold a wheelchair or scooter. So I always check with each hotel to be sure I can leave my wheelchair somewhere safe.
It’s a challenge, but I have taken my wheelchair to Italy atleast 8 times and have always had a great time.

There have been several threads recently about accessibility and I think there are some RS official articles so definitely use the Search bar at the top to see previous posts.

Here is a recent thread:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/push-wheelchair-users-rome-naples-maybe-venice-with-wheelchair-push-chair

Plan well and have a great trip,
=Tod

Venezia Santa Lucia and Roma Termini are both terminal stations, so there are no steps to navigate between platforms. I was just in Venice and can report there's a long, gradually inclined wheelchair ramp connecting the front of the station to the sidewalk. I am pretty confident there is step-free access to Roma Termini as well. I haven't been to Florence recently.

I am concerned about your ability to get a 40-lb. scooter (not to mention any accompanying luggage on your arrival and departure days), onto a vaporetto, and getting around Venice without boarding a vaporetto would be extremely challenging--I'd say impossible unless you want to pay for very costly water taxis everywhere. It varies a bit with the current water level in the canals, but there's a significant step down as you board a vaporetto, and then the same step back up at the end of the trip. Vaporetti were nearly always really crowded earlier this month, and I'm afraid it will be very difficult to find space for the chair on the entry level, which in most cases consists only of a modest amount of standing room. The main level of the boat is multiple steps down. People are very good about vacating the seats marked as handicapped-priority when someone needs them, but I think those are on the lower level.

There are little canals to be crossed everywhere in Venice, and they are crossed via hump-backed bridges. I think those have at least 8 steps up and 8 steps down. The (few) large bridges across the Grand Canal are more like 40 steps up and 40 steps down (I counted). Unfortunately, Venice is difficult for the mobility-challenged. I hope we have someone here with pertinent experience.

The Florence train station has a ramp but it’s fairly steep and I needed a push. Are you traveling with someone who can assist? In Venice the vaporetto staff did help with loading my wheelchair via a ramp. The staff also helped clear people out of the way so I had a spot. As for the many charming bridges, I made sure my hotel was in a place ai could reach without going over one. Avoid the Cannaregio neighborhood. It’s beautiful buy has many many bridges to get most anywhere.

Cannaregio includes the area around the train station. I recently stayed at the Palazzo Cendon (3-star), which was about a 10-minute walk from the station (and the Ferrovia vaporetto docks) and didn't require crossing a bridge. However, going farther into Cannaregio gets you into bridge territory.

The Florence station is accessed by stairs from all sides, but from the north side the access is at ground level; I do not remember if completely flat or just a single step.

Fast trains have three steep steps on all accesses. You can reserve at main stations an elevator service that will lift a wheelchair at carriage level or get it down from the train; it is important to reserve it well in advance and give exact measurements (metric) to check that the chair can actually be lifted.