Driving Naples to rome

It seems last Naples to Rome train is 3:00 on December 17 or am I
doing something wrong?

What website are you using? I just plugged 17/12/2017 into the Trenitalia website and there are MANY trains from Napoli Centrale to Roma Termini: the last one I'm seeing is at 21:31 PM although it's not one I'd take as it's not direct. The one before that - at 20:35 - IS direct and takes 1 hour, 10 minutes.

Anyway, there are about 3-4 "fast" trains every hour from 15:00 up to that last one at 20:35...which is the only "fast" train after 19:40.

http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en

This is NOT to say that you should drive that car into central Naples, just that there are trains which run later than you're thinking. I'll defer the car-drop issue to others who've done it.

What is your larger Itinerary? If you are planning on driving around southern Italy for a week or two, then doing stuff in Naples/Sorrento/Amalfi coast then on to Rome, then I would drop the car off near Naples (Airport or Salerno) and use public transport from there on. Naples and the general area, including the Amalfi Coast is not car friendly, plenty of transport options. If you are not planning on seeing anything between Naples and Rome, then the train is the way to go.

am I doing something wrong?

Yes, you probably checked the site at 3:00 and you did not enter an hour of departure from the drop down menu. Therefore the site switched to the hour on your PC.

Two competing companies run high speed trains in Italy: trenitalia.com/tcom-en and italotreno.it/en. The latter has less runs per day, but their sales are often cheaper than trenitalia's.

Driving between cities on A-something divided motorways is nothing special; driving inside cities, towns and villages is another league because of ZTL areas (I guess you already know everything about it), one way streets and a road network designed in the middle ages (if you are lucky, in Naples a bunch of drunk Greek settlers planned the all thing 2,200 years ago).

Since the moment you start going inland, driving south of Naples means driving in tunnels through the mountains and on viaducts in the clouds.

Do you plan to stop and visit Naples? If not, I’d drive straight to Rome. It’s only a couple hours more to the north and it’s all freeway driving.

Thanks so much. I did find the right train schedule.

Long story short, I will be staying in a trullo near Martina Franca, with car & adult daughter, siteseeing for 10 days. We want to see Pompeii & sorrento, then travel to Rome for 3 days. Any siteseeing advice is also welcome, but car/train is my real question.
I am thinking drive to Rome, but I DO need educated on ZTL, including
1) where in Rome to drop car, if given a choice
Is it possible to drop without entering ZTL zone at Leonardo airport.
2) easy car park sorento? Pompeii?
3) drop car in Naples? My main reason for drop in Rome is to avoid luggage locker or worse yet, dragging our bags....convenience of not worrying about our luggage

Drop the car in Sorrento and forget about driving in Rome. ZTL fines are not cheap and in Italy there is no easy parking anywhere.
ZTLs are nowhere near airports and motorways: they stop non residents from driving inside historic centers of cities, towns and villages. Expect to see many ZTL signs during those 10 days.
From Sorrento you can take buses and/or ferries to the Amalfi Coast Villages and the islands. A local railway will take you to Pompeii and Napoli Centrale station from where both trenitalia and italotreno trains depart to Rome.

Another option would be dropping the car off in Salerno, there you could take a direct high speed train to Rome avoiding the change in Naples.

PS Don't leave anything in the trunk, never. It doesn't matter if it can be seen from the outside or not. There is luggage storare at Pompeii entrance for a good reason.

moorehead, it's still not clear where you are sleeping for those three days. If you stay in Naples or Sorrento, you won't have any luggage to check, it will be in the hotel. If you are going to Rome to sleep, you'll have to lug the luggage to the hotel from the rental depot, won't you? Are you just going to the Rome airport? Pompeii has excellent luggage checking facilities used by many, many posters here. Parking is limited there, but possible.

Sorrento is a difficult place to park, but maybe it's easier in December. We saw cars lined up for half and hour to get into the underground garages of Sorrento in late May. Or are you driving four hours to visit Pompeii from Martina Franca and back?