Fitting that this gets posted while I’m on a frecciarosa train

Couple of notes from an Italian: - The Frecciargento and Frecciabianca services are basically getting axed. Trenitalia wants to focus investing on the main brand alone, Frecciarossa (to also expand it in Europe) and thus the "sub-brands" are getting scrapped. Makes sense: the Frecciabianca was always a dumb service, basically it was a fancier InterCity which had the same travel times and costed more for no reason. The Frecciargento had a point, it being they would have short stints on the high speed mainlines and then branch off to secondary cities. But again, investing on the Frecciarossa brand probably is the smarter business strategy. So the ETR 600 and 700 which were previously Frecciargento have been ported over to Frecciarossa, while the older Pendolino trainsets will probably be retired in the near future. - The ETR 700 is not too bad honestly: quiet enough, pretty comfortable and in general OK. It's getting used on "secondary" Frecciarossa services, like Turin to Venice or Milan to Trieste, where just a short portion it's truly high speed . Generally, it's in the same class as the NTV Italo New Pendolino. The only big flaw of the ETR700 IMHO is that for how many people it carries, there's way too few toilets. It made sense for short trips it was designed to for the Netherlands, on 4-5 hours journeys here not so much. Still, Trenitalia got a killer deal on those trains and buying them was a good choice. You can just see tough that they were manufacturer for foreign and not domestic use because compared to the ETR500 or ETR1000 they are very ugly.

Pendolino made me reach my girlfriend in Milan superfast from Rome every week in 1994-96, and now the same is happening to my daughter with her boyfriend almost 30 years later, with the even faster Frecciarossa 1000. It's an amazing Italian story, yet so normal to us, that we take it for granted, while in so many other countries railways aren't developed very much. Italians do it better... literally! ❤❤

Don't forget the Red paint that makes their trains faster :)

oh, to live in a country where punching KILOMETRES through MOUNTAIN RANGES and UNDER WHOLE CITIES is doable for HSR.

Red makes vehicles faster. ofc italy has amazing high speed trains!

I've been on high speed trains in Italy, Germany and France. Before going abroad and using those services as an Italian I thought the others got that better. I was wrong. The Italian service is on par or better than those other two.

The Frecciaargento ETR 700 trains are absolutely fine. I travelled on one from Milan to Venice last summer and there was no problems. It looks like the Italians have ironed out all the problems since the trains Dutch days. I can say I happily enjoyed a few Proseccos on that train.

13:53 man, you did not need to roast Ferrari like that, the Tifosi are already suffering enough lol

They should definitely be proud of their network. Imagine if the uk had made such good decisions in the past. We'd have london, bristol, birmingham, manchester, leeds, newcastle, endinburgh/glasgow connected in a hsr network. It's insane to think about. And by 2030 they will have connected their equivalent of aberdeen and inverness, which is bari and regio calabria. Not to mention that what they are building from palermo to catania, would be an extra dublin to belfast hsr on top. It's amazing. The uk seems at least 30 years behind. The only part of their network that i know of that should bring shame, is the ventimiglia to genoa stretch, no cross border service, extremely limited times to only during the day, old fleet. There will be a case at some point during the 2030's to have hsr from nice to genoa.

No way! Currently watching this on a Frecciarossa train to Bologna! Perfect timing. Having been on several Italian trains this week thanks to my Interrail pass, I can confirm they're very comfortable, though the constant tunnel sections means internet connection is rare, I have to download things to watch/listen to in advance like a flight

Going on a bit of a tangent here, but if you ever get the chance to visit Milano Centrale station I very highly recommend it. The most beautiful railway station I've ever been to.

This is some dejavu to Railways Explained a few hours ago 😝

Great video! We think there is a huge potential for some future cooperation 😀 Best regards from RE team!

Northern Italy being richer than the southern part makes perfect sense history wise. Overseas trade (brought in to the ports of Genoa and Venice, and formerly Pisa when it had a port) plus with its neighbors, spurred by the Crusades, led to the growth of large city-states and rise of the merchant class who'd dominate said city-states in northern Italy. The region also had many sizable towns. Thus, northern Italy was urban while the rest of Europe was still mostly rural. Florence in particular became the center of the financial industry as the gold florin became the main currency of international trade. This region was the perfect place to begin the Renaissance which of course spread to the rest of Europe. Northern Italy today is still the center of industry, thanks to it being so close to other major cities as well as its rail connections to said cities. You know Trenitalia's doing something right when the HSR network was literally cited as a reason the defunct flag carrier Alitalia failed. What I really like about the Italian railways is not just the high-speed trains, but rather how cheap and reliable regional railways are. The difference between France and Italy is absurd and very visible once you cross the border.

It's amazing to see you get sponsored! Hope you continue to grow.

Italy was always a pionear in high speed, here in Portugal the first fast train was the Foguete, a 3 car dmi by Fiat Ferroviaria. The Spanish TER was also a similar train by the same company. Still nowadays the Portuguese Alfa Pendular is the flagship of CP and uses a Fiat pendolino emu.

Paris-Turin trains are great. I love doing breakfast in London, lunch in Paris and Dinner in Turin, which is possible and have done a few times. The Frecciarosse are so much better then the TGVs - and cheaper. And the fact that the highspeed track in the middle section is not finished is not a problem because the scenery is so good.

Nice video of an underappreciated system and country. There are still too many bad or overly romantic stereotypes out there about Italy. But your video shows that when Italians want to, they are innovative, modern and efficient. I've taken the Frecciarossa lots of times, and it's a pleasure to zip smoothly through the country, enjoying the scenery and sometimes a snack or drink. It's a world ahead of driving or flying. Just one niggle: Get those Italian city pronunciations right.

Ah, Zaha Hadid. Mesopotamian society and Zaha Hadid are Iraq's greatest exports. Pretty cool she designed Napoli Afragola just before her death in 2016 (sadly the station opened in 2017 so she didn't get to see it completed). I know Olympic Stadiums are meant to be the centerpieces of each Games, but the aquatics centre she designed for the 2012 Summer Olympics blew the stadium that year out of the water. Truly a work of art. Though my favorite work of hers is the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, both the exterior and the interior of its auditorium are magnificent. Although she passed in 2016, her firm is continuing her legacy beautifully. Cool Santiago Calatrava played a role in Italian HSR too. Sure he gets a lot of slack for the WTC Hub, but if you give the hub a chance, it's beautiful...the marble floors of the concourse, staring up at the view of the sky between bone-white ribs....its grandeur and aspiration is something to appreciate. Lower Manhattan deserves an optimistic gathering place and the Oculus is that.

The AGV is such a great piece of kit. It's unfathomable that almost nobody bought it, i really can't comprehend this

Found Italian trains lot more luxurious than the Swiss and Spanish.. Europe must stay as is to prove the world peace and prosperity can be achieved with mutual respect and dignity without any guns and bullying

That dig at Ferrari was not needed Reece 😭😭😭

I live in verona, and I find the railway infrastructure here to be fascinating. Verona is one of those cities that really goes many places by rail. You can head to milan, venice, bologna and even austria if you choose to

I have visited Italy multiple times, travelling around the country by train, and I am impressed by its railway system. Well done Italy!

🇮🇹 & 🇯🇵 are more similar than people think especially regarding Public Transport...

Yearly total ridership: Renfe: 520 000 000 Trenitalia:900 000 000 SNCF > 2000 000 000

11:04 You mentioned the Frecciarossa services go to Lyon, but they go all the way to Paris. Yes, you need to get up early to get the 7.25 am service, but you can take a nap in the train and arrive to Milan in time for a late lunch!

Nice re-upload/remake

excellent video as an Italian who lives in Florence I often take high speed trains and I am proud of it. excellent pronunciations in Italian

It's nice to hear a good video about Italian HSR, but not being able to enjoy it because you are a second class citizen living at the edge of the country... Where is our bridge in the Mediterranean?

Love that Italy has just quietly been building away! I think in the U.K. our main issue is that our conventional lines are just about good enough… long stretches of 200 kph on the Great Western, East Coast and West coast mainlines mean there isn’t as much low hanging fruit in terms of journey time improvements to be had, add in rampant nimbyism, high land costs etc and it’s not hard to see how we’ve got left behind.

The base tunnels connecting Italy and the other countries in the alp to the rest of Europe are absolutely nuts I’m glad you mentioned them

La Frecciarossa, amore il mio 😍😍

Italo is really the Ferrari of trains! 🇮🇹🔝

I love travel by train. Pass Monday I went from Rome Termini to Milan by Italo NTV. Great experience in first class. There are other parts of Italy that will need high speed urgently, for example Milan to Ventimiglia (which is an efficient but slow line, 4 hours by InterCity) and Rome to Sicily (which will need a bridge over Messina's strait, actually under study, again). That will really connect the whole country reducing unncecessary polluting flights that in logistic times are very time consuming and uncomfortable. Great analysis!

Pendolino train translated in eng means: Little pendulum train

I'd ask if Italy's F1 team you mentioned was Ferrari or Afla Tauri but it applies to both equally.

The city of Milan is Italy NYC and 2nd largest city because of its high-rise skyscrapers and its financial heart. Anyway, that country has good high-speed rail between its cities. Milan is the city I will go to because it reminds me of Toronto in Canada 🇨🇦.

ETR700 in reality didn’t have any big issues, they just didn’t want it, there was a lawsuit and ansaldo Breda won because the train didn’t have any concerning problems

I did ride on the etr 700 an it wasn’t bad, not as smooth as the freccia rossa 1000 but I definitely would recommend taking it if you have the chance

I actually took a ride with the ETR700 between Milan and Parma. It was not bad at all! The trains were in good shape although the passenger cabin design looked a bit dated. Service from Trenitalia was great though.

It is great to see how well the video turned out!

I lot of foreign train youtubers seem to love our trains ❤ I hope we keep investing in it.

Another hit Reece! Thanks. I rode from Turin to Paris a few years ago and, while the train wasn't high speed, it was comfortable and very efficient. Also, the Metro system in Turin, although small, was very convenient and efficient. Great stuff and I will continue to look forward to future productions. Thanks.

I just recently saw a Italian High Speed Train in Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. I don’t know what it did there, as far as I know Italian HSR does not go into Germany. But it was there at Platform 1A

What a system. That is amazing re connections to Berlin and Paris. That is rearranging geography in Europe! Cheers, thanks

Finally it's back!

My town in Poland was supposed to get pendalinos... Probably not going to happen any time soon, despite currently replacing the rail bridge for them. Last stop on the line, I guess.

Great video!

the Naples Afragola station looks like a gigantic PS5

"This year I'm making videos about high speed rail systems all around the world" *cries in Australian*

Sensational video.

00:09:55 some smart-assing: this is actually an RABe501 'Giruno' built by Stadler and not an ERT610😉

Earlier today the third episode in a row by Railways Explained about Italy came out, and then this video... I Learned a few things, thanks for the amazing content! 🚄🇪🇺 🇮🇹

Actually the Freccia Bianca and the Freccia Argento services are not anymore available. Freccia Bianca is absorbed by Intercity services and Freccia Argento by Freccia Rossa services.

Wow never expected a dig on Ferrari in an RMTransit video.... 😢 But in any case great video as always!

Really enjoyed the video. Thanks for sharing. I have a small amount of footage of the Spanish HSR that I would be happy to share with you.

Great video

Hey @RMTransit, love the videos. Would you be able to make one on the EuroCity network?

Ayyy I'm half Italian, so thanks for a video about HSR in my country 😀 P.s. my family lives in a village about 20 km away from the Rome-Naples HSR line

11:03 And to Geneva, Switzerland. Some service of SBb are driving all the way to Frankfurt.

Watching this on an Iryo (which is a Frecciarossa) from Valencia to Madrid!

Very good video. I’m quite well informed about this topic and while watching it I had, at times,a feeling like “…if only they just also said …” this and that, only to see after a few minutes that indeed they were going to 😂 (like Trenitalia’s “shopping abroad” or the new HSL projects). Well done

I would be very glad if you do the explainer on Newcastle metro. It’s relatively small compared to the systems you are usually talking about, but the area itself is not that big. However, Tyne and Wear metro is a cool metro system, that connects the whole agglomeration and have a lot of interesting decisions like pretzel shape services. And despite having just 2 lines, it has 60 stations, more than a half of the Oslo despite not being a capital and even a well known city across the world

Greetings from RailwaysExplained 😊 you did the same video topic at the same day 😅. Coincidence?

Note: there are a Frecciarossa and an Italo serving Reggio Calabria since 2020. Before that you had to change in Naples, taking an Intercity or a Frecciabianca because the line after Salerno was and still is so old and curvy and challenging that there's a strict speed limit. You still can take those trains but nowadays most people just choose Italo or Frecciarossa because most of them going to Calabria are people who live in the North or Center (like me) with family there. Only difference is the number of stops: the Frecciarossa does only 4 stops after Salerno (those being Paola, Lamezia Terme, Rosarno and Villa san Giovanni) while the Italo also stops in Battipaglia, Agropoli, Vallo della Lucania, Sapri, Maratea, Scalea, also Amantea I believe and Vibo Valentia-Pizzo (stations usually served by the Intercity or Frecciabianca. Now the line after Salerno is slowly being reconfigured to suit high speed trains more and I heard there's also debates of making a new line that goes through Cosenza and with lots of base tunnels (which the current line already has, especially between Vallo della Lucania and Sapri) but we don't know for sure and for now they've resulted to improving the current line. Also who knows, maybe if they DO build the bridge to Messina it will be possible to directly take a Frecciarossa from Turin to Palermo, instead of the night train

Some notes from switzerland: the train shown at ~ 09:55 is not an ETR 610 and has nothing to do with the livery of the frecciargento. This is an EC250 or SMILE from Stadler Rail, owned and branded by the swiss federal railway in white, red and black

i rode on the pendolino trains in poland from krakow to warsaw and their pretty fire

Is it coordinated or just a coincidence that Railways Explained just made a video with the same topic?

OH GOD FINALLY YOU RE-UPLOADED THIS VIDEO, I MISSED IT SO MUCH ❤

Hey, nice Video, really enjoyed it as well as I enjoyed the ride on a etr1000 between Milan and Rome and back again just a few weeks ago. Just a little side note; the train that you displayed as an etr 610 is actually a SBB RABe 501 (which is actually the first series of the Stadler SMILE family) and it’s wearing the livery of the Swiss federal railway. But as you correctly stated it’s used for the Zurich-Milan route. The Etr 610 is used for the service between Geneva and Milan, also operated by SBB. As the Simplon route is much curvier as the newly opened Gotthard and cenery base Tunnel route the use of the pendolino makes a lot sense there.

To think that a decade ago people in Italy were very critical about the railway system, things changed A LOT

Please make more videos about systems in South America explained! São Paulo, Buenos Aires etc.

The main problem of the Milano-Venezia HSR is in Brescia: in the west area of the city,freight trains from/to the new Brescia rail yard will share the same tracks of HST. Indeed, the section Brescia-Carezzato (length 10-15 km) will be capable of speeds between 100-160 km/h (slower than the old line). The initial project consisted in a HSR between Milan and Verona (The HSR would have bypassed Brescia) and a "German-like" HSR between Verona and Venezia. The initial project between Milano and Verona was revisited; the sections Milan-Brescia and Brescia Verona were slightly modified while the bypass of Brescia was eliminated. Many people don't like the new project (including me).

Hi Reece, I want to thank you for this video about the Italian high speed railway network. I am happy to see the benefits of the network in my country and also of the innovation as well as of multiple operators on the network. That’s a really good job. I would like a opinion exchange about some backsides of this infrastructure and service. I apologize that the post is going to be long, bur there are many technical aspect that I would like to discuss about and know your opinion and eventually suggestion to improve the service with the existing infrastructure. First of all, the Italian high speed network is great, reliable and has high capacity too, but on the other hand it miss a couple of targets considering the territory. Italian geography consists of lot of small towns, villages, some middle dimension city (200.000-700.000 inhabitants) and the main Region Capitals being around a million inhabitants, plus Rome, Milan which are larger. The idea of a French-model high speed networks serves only a small portion of the territory and population, leaving out a large amount of citizens located in middle large cities, which are connected only through intercity or fast services (Frecciabianca, up to a few years ago) using the legacy line shared with regional and local services. In some points some interconnections has been built, but never used in regular services and only for deviations, as well as the few stations built along the line are as far from the city center as an airport. And connected only by a local train every 30 minutes. The market division of Trenitalia (Frecciarossa) and Italo provide shuttle bus from the station to the center. An idea I have been discussing with, also in the regional offices alongside with experts, commuters and other transportation related associations, was the implementation of a HighSpeedRegional train using the high speed line but through interconnections serve middle large cities (where intercity stops, not all stops of regional trains) between Turin and Milan, calling at Vercelli and Novara, as well as Rho Fiera, using the legacy line between Santhià and Novara, where there is no suburban service. This could apply on many other Italian Regions. The reasons for declining the project were the competences and the costs, as a public service cannot be in competition with a market service. Apart from this aspects, which I think could be solved, maybe by suggesting the market division of Trenitalia such connections and which is not excluded to be done in the future, in the last 10-15 years Trenitalia removed a lot of Nord-South connections in Italy along the Thirrenian and Adriatic sea to move more passengers on the high speed line, where in many cases the other solution was shorter and cheaper than going through Milan. The last of the issue with the Italian high speed railway regards the environmental impact of its construction, with the destruction of water sources, landscape as well as costs being 3-4 times more than expected. Due to this reason there is also a movement against the high speed railway link between Turin and Lyon, where many costs/benefits relations gave a negative result. What I wish for the future, is that Italy invests a lot on local and national public services also outside the high speed railways, creating urban hubs, organic and scheduled suburban services, proper connections between lines as well as reopen the railways have been closed in the last 20 years and implements a high quality service, in order to make it possible to move and visit the territory also without a car. Thanks for your contribution to transit implementation.

Is there any possibility you will make such video about polish train system? There isn't any high speed line to my knowledge but there is a lot of room for improvement

What a great and informative video do you plan to do Austrian HSR

I travelled Bologna to Florence and the train went 300KMH . It was said that the long tunnels kept the speed limit , but it goes to 360 in more open sections on they way down to Roma & Napoli. I personally felt slightly scared at that speed

Great video, but just one thing, Milan has been an important city for some time now, not just in recent years. It was founded as the capital of the Western Roman empire and is the second largest city in Italy after Rome.

Great Video, as an italian i love to see this content, i think there's not enough content about our railways. Just 3 things: - At 10:00 you talk about ETR610 but you actually show a pictur of a RABe 501 trainset. The ETR610 look is identical with the ETR600, the main difference is that ETR 610 can go under 15kV AC catenary - ETR 1000 isn't the correct classification of Frecciarossa 1000. It's actually ETR400 (Train classes on italian state railways must be composed by 3 digits), even though Trenitalia calls it ETR1000 - Frecciargento and Frecciabianca will soon be dismissed as a class of services. Right now all the ETR 700 and ETR 600 (that used to be Frecciargento) are in the new Frecciarossa livery. Only the old Pendolinos trainset are still in Frecciargento and Frecciabianca liveries, and they serve very few routes with very low frequency (Mainly links between Rome and the cities of Genoa and Ravenna, and the regions of Calabria and Apulia, that currently have no high speed lines). Both the ETR 460 and 485 will not last long on the italian network, voices are that ETR485s will be sent in Greece... Thank you for talking about our country!

I've only ever been on shinkosan and Italian ETR, I found cornering on the Italian high speed rail was noticeable compared with the Japanese train

Please make a video about the metro system, and the train stations in Rome

Really nice lofi in the background in this video btw, maybe it's been in others but the chilled-out flute and sax really stood out to me in this one! (The piece with more piano is nice too, but definitely more "typical")

Well, there are two videos about the same topic realeased almost at the same time.

I am stil astounded as to why the SNCF is sticking with loco hauled high speed trains when the AGV is utterly brilliant. Looks great, especially in the red Italo livery

Was just curious; is the Zurich to Milan route via Gotthard Base Tunnel full high-speed rail now or plans to be full high-speed rail at some point? I would imagine this is a critical cross Alps route (was not shown in the network map) along with the current construction of the Lyon to Turin high-speed route and Munich/Innsbruck to Verona route via Brenner Base Tunnel. Another awesome video by the way too!

Pendolinos are also used in Portugal, with maximum speeds of 220 km/h. When the first HS lines open, they'll be included in the HS service.

9:54 (wrong picture ;) ) actually the EC between Switzerland and Italy are operated by booth SBB and Trenitalia ETR 610. The SBB ones have the SBB livery not the Freccia Argento livery.

A little update on the Napoli Bari HSR as I live near the area of the upcoming infrastructure. They are going to start digging a 27 km long gallery in the heart of Appennini which will be the core of this infrastructure. Once fully operative, the galleria Hirpinia will be an impressive tunnel which will equal in length the Galleria di Valico, another tunnel they are boring between Genova and Milano. The Napoli - Bari HSR will allow to travel between the two cities in 2 hours instead of the actual 4 and between Bari and Rome in just 3 hours, storming through my country’s backbone and serving also Benevento, my beautiful city.

VERY WELL DONE VIDEO I’M HAPPY TO SEE THAT OUR HIGH SPEED NETWORK IS APPRECIATED ALSO OVERSEA. IT WOULD BE VERY VERY INTERESTING A VIDEO ON A SPCIFIC TOPIC SUCH AS ARCHITECTURE ON STATION OR THE PROJECT MENTIONED AT 13:00 . GREETINGS FROM AN ITALIAN TRAIN ENTHUSIAST👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

so this is the video that not just bikes referenced in his vide about italian HSR?

Italy train is best in Europe

At 9:53 you're not showing an ETR 610, that is a Stadler Smile/Giruno. The ETR 610 is at 10:53.

Thanks to the implementation of the HSR I managed to travel extensively and relatively inexpensively in my own country. I hate driving and parking and getting stuck into endless motorways traffic jams, eventually I can leave the car behind, which is also good for the environment.

Watching this as someone from the UK is just painful lol. We don't even have high speed rail (HS1 does not count)

Wow, you're the first non italian transit channel talking about the new hsr between Salerno and Reggio Calabria...this is a huge infrastructural improvement for the south Italy, unfortunately this line has created some scandal bcs politicians chose a very strange route with lots of inclines that would not guarantee maximum speed instead of a flatter route. If u want i suggest to read more about this line :)

I think you missed a route between Venice and Udine, where the freccia rossa trains service but don’t go for high speeds. There are freccia rossa trains and also Italo trains that service Udine which is where they terminate from Rome/Naples and also Milan from memory. These services leave only once a day I believe and I’m guessing there are more trains between Venice, Milan and Rome etc. but it was an amazing video explaining all the different types of trains in Italy!

Italian highspeed rail is not underrated. It is well known for having competitors and for helping knock down Alitalia ! HSR that is underrated, and not talked about is Taiwan high speed rail. Crossing the country north to south in 1h45m is remarkable .. even more that 92% (!) of population live in proximity of the hs line !

there is Gallarate for passing Freccia Rossa and Freccia Rossa 1000 i live in Gallarate and i love getting on the train