Founded | 1880 |
---|---|
Fate | Acquired by Alstom in June 2000, succeeded by Alstom Ferroviaria S.p.A in 2002 |
Headquarters | , Italy |
Products | Diesel locomotives Railcars Buses |
Parent | Alstom |
Alstom Ferroviaria S.p.A., formerly known as Fiat Ferroviaria S.p.A., is the Italian division of Alstom. Fiat Ferroviaria S.p.A. was the rail division of automobile manufacturer Fiat. It was founded in 1880 as Società Nazionale Officine di Savigliano. [1] Fiat Ferroviaria began building locomotives in the 1930s. It became part of Fiat in 1970. Fiat Ferroviaria acquired the rail business of SIG of Switzerland in 1995, forming the subsidiary Fiat-Sig. [1]
The company had previously owned Argentine company Materfer until 1998, [2] which now operates as an independent company. In June 2000, Alstom purchased a 51% shareholding. [3] [4] [5]
During the 1960s and 1970s, Fiat Ferroviaria developed a tilting technology for trains and was the first (and the only one for several decades) to produce active tilting trains with the trademark of Pendolino. In Italy, several classes of Pendolinos were adopted starting from 1976 (ETR 401, ETR 450, ETR 460-65, ETR 480-85 and the Alstom made ETR600.
Following the success of the ETR 450 series introduced in Italy in 1988 (the 401 series introduced in 1976 consisted of only 2 trainsets and never operated regular commercial service, working more like an "on-wheel laboratory"), tilting systems including bogies, traction, electric and electronic equipment were ordered by several countries:
In February 1999, Virgin Trains West Coast ordered a fleet of Class 390s from Alstom that incorporated Fiat Ferroviaria tilting technology. [6] [7]
Directly or indirectly, 18 countries throughout the world applied the Italian Fiat Ferroviaria tilting technology to their trains, including the United States and China.
A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide about or seated passengers to feel squashed by the outboard armrest, and standing passengers to lose their balance, or in such excessive speeds, could even cause the train to derail. Tilting trains are designed to counteract this by tilting the carriages towards the inside of the curve, thus compensating for the g-force. The train may be constructed such that inertial forces cause the tilting, or it may have a computer-controlled powered mechanism.
Pendolino is an Italian family of high-speed tilting trains used in Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the UK, the US, Switzerland, China, and Greece. It was also used in Russia from December 12, 2010 until March 26, 2022. Based on the design of the Italian ETR 401, it was further developed and manufactured by Fiat Ferroviaria, which was taken over by Alstom in 2000.
Cisalpino AG was a railway company, referred to as CIS in timetables, operating international trains between Switzerland and Italy connecting Basel, Schaffhausen, Zürich, Geneva, Milan, Venice, Trieste, Livorno, and Florence. The company has its legal headquarters in Muri bei Bern (BE), Switzerland, and is jointly owned by the Swiss Federal Railways and Trenitalia.
The British Rail Class 390 Pendolino is a type of electric high-speed passenger train operated by Avanti West Coast in the United Kingdom, leased from Angel Trains. They are electric multiple units using Fiat Ferroviaria's tilting train Pendolino technology and built by Alstom. Fifty-three units were originally built between 2001 and 2004 for operation on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). They were ordered as eight-car units, later extended to nine cars, of which some were then lengthened further to 11 cars. These new 11-car trains were renumbered as the subclass 390/1. The trains of the original batch were the last to be assembled at Alstom's Washwood Heath plant, before its closure in 2005. The remaining trains in the fleet were built in Italy.
Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane S.p.A. is Italy's national state-owned railway holding company that manages transport, infrastructure, real estate services and other services in Italy and other European countries.
Alfa Pendular is the name of the flagship Pendolino high-speed tilting train of Portuguese state railway company CP. It connects the cities of Guimarães, Braga, Porto, Aveiro, Coimbra, Santarém, Lisbon, Albufeira and Faro, among others at speeds of up to 220 km/h.
ETR 450 was the first series Italian tilting train.
The New Pendolino is a class of high-speed tilting trains built by Alstom Ferroviaria for Trenitalia and Cisalpino.
ETR 470 is a high-speed tilting electric multiple unit, which is now only operated by the Greek company, Hellenic Train. Introduced in September 1996, nine units were built for the Italo-Swiss firm Cisalpino. They were made by Fiat Ferroviaria, and could tilt up to 8°. Today, there are five trains in Greece.
The Sm3 Pendolino is a class of high-speed body-tilting trains operated by VR Group. It is a member of the Pendolino train family; its design is based on the ETR 460. The first two trainsets were assembled in Finland by Rautaruukki-Transtech in the mid-1990s. The rest of the series of eighteen EMUs were built by Fiat Ferroviaria between 2000 and 2006. The trains serve most of Finland's major cities such as Helsinki, Turku, Oulu and Joensuu with a maximum speed of 220 km/h (140 mph), although this speed is only attained between Kerava and Lahti. The train has a power output of 4,000 kW (5,400 hp) and weighs 328 tonnes.
The ETR 480 is a tilting Electric Multiple Unit built by Fiat Ferroviaria since 1993, It is also known as Pendolino. It was developed from the first new-generation Pendolino, the ETR 460. The main difference between ETR 460, ETR 470 and ETR 480 is that the 460 run only on 3 kV DC, the 470 on both 3 kV DC and 15 kV AC, and the 480 on both 3 kV DC and 25 kV 50 Hz AC.
Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori S.p.A. is an Italian open-access train operating company operating in the field of high-speed rail transport under the brand name Italo, stylized as .italo.
ČD Class 680 are EMUs operating in the Czech Republic, using tilting Pendolino technology intended for the SuperCity train service. Built by Alstom, they were largely based on the nine-car ETR 470. While testing from Břeclav to Brno on November 18, 2004, the Pendolino reached a speed of 237 km/h (147 mph) and created a new Czech railway speed record. The units are able to operate on 25 kV 50 Hz AC, 15 kV 16.7 Hz AC and 3,000 V DC.
DBAG Class 411 and Class 415 are German tilting electric multiple-unit high-speed trains in service with DB Fernverkehr, commonly known as ICE T.
The Renfe Class 490, also known as the ETR 490, is an electric multiple unit constructed by Alstom and Fiat Ferroviaria and operated by Spanish rail company Renfe on its Alaris long-distance services. Since the introduction of the Alaris service, only ETR 490 units have been used for this service. Therefore, these trainsets are often known as Alaris themselves. The units were the first actively tilting units to go into regular service in Spain.
The ETR 460 is an electric multiple unit (EMU) tilting train produced by FIAT Ferroviaria since 1993. It is also known as the Pendolino after the family of trains from which it comes.
ETR 500 is a family of Italian high-speed trains built by AnsaldoBreda and introduced in 1993.
Materfer is an Argentine manufacturer of railway and road vehicles, located in the city of Ferreyra in Córdoba Province. The company was established by Fiat Concord in the late 1950s, being its subsidiary until 1980 when Sevel Argentina took over Fiat vehicles.
The 7131 was an Argentine diesel multiple unit class, first produced in Italy by Fiat Ferroviaria, then licensed to Argentine company Materfer to continue the manufacturing. Those railcars were introduced in the 1960s to replace the existing rolling stock of most of the urban services of Argentina, such as Roca, Urquiza, Mitre and Sarmiento lines.
Società Nazionale Officine di Savigliano (SNOS), also known as Savigliano, was one of the most prestigious Italian industrial companies of the twentieth century. It had interests in many sectors including mechanical and electrical engineering. It was founded in Turin on 17 July 1880, with a share capital of one million lire, with the aim of undertaking the "construction and repair of railway material, metal bridges, canopies, mechanical, electrical and aeronautical constructions as well as woodworking. generally".