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Buongiorno!
Four years later, it’s time to travel once again with Italo, Europe’s very first high speed train operator, back in 2019 I was already impressed by Italo and its AGV (Such a shame they’re the only operator of the type!)
Enjoy, and don’t forget to like and leave a comment to support the channel 🙂
– TRIP INFORMATION –
Date: JUNE 2024
Railway company: NTV Italo
Route : Milano Centrale to Roma Termini
Time : 3h39 (+23 min delay in Roma Termini)
Price : 39 euros in Prima Business
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00:00 : Intro
00:47 : Milano Centrale
01:11 : Another Italo ?
01:50 : Saily eSIM
02:53 : Why Italo is a game changer
03:56 : Rolling stock
04:57 : Boarding
05:47 : Departure and stats
06:37 : Straight outta Milan
06:46 : Seat check
08:22 : LAV Milan – Bologne
09:55 : Mid roll ads
10:34 : Walkthrough
13:16 : Toilets Time
14:00 : Bologne
14:10 : 300km/h and Florence
14:54 : Work on the Direttissima
16:55 : Arrival in Rome
17:12 : Thoughts about Italo
17:47 : Outro
41 Comments
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It’s no Frecciarossa executive class…
Nice video, nice train, nice journey…but a 3h39mins trip for less than 600kms makes an average speed of only 150km/h…😮
Great video as always Thibault! Being Italian, Italo is always my onwly choice when travelling by HSR. I always find great bargains and find that they usually have lower prices then Trenitalia. Plus, having compared it to other HS products in Europe (mainly ICE and TGV of different generations), I still belive the AGV is the best in terms of ride quality. For sure they are an example for many to follow!
Was in Italy for the last week and a half going to Rome, Napoli and then back north to Rimini, all by high speed train. Didn't get the chance to try out Italo though, because Interrail is not valid on it. So it was all Freccia Rossa.
Anyhow, i was positively surprised by basically everything. Pretty punctual service, clean trains & toilets, comfortable seats, free snacks, water and a soft drink or coffee. Really a great experience!
What however certainly was NOT a great experience was CircumVisuviana which should have brought me to Pompeï but their entire network broke down with technical difficulties right in front of me…. and since the other 2 days i was in Napoli were just a complete rainy mess i didn't end up visiting Pompeï at all…. 🙁
Also the OBB new generation Railjet i took yesterday from Bologna to München was also pretty bad. Those new generation trains have really poor seat comfort! There were also some technical difficulties with the train that resulted in an overall 50 minute delay which ment the train got cancelled in München Ost…..
Pretty sure the control car of the trainset broke down or something. When we entered Verona after sitting there for like 10 minutes they brought the locomotive to the side that had the control car and drove it locomotive first the whole way.
PLEASE publish your book in English!
Thats a good price!
14:40 the works for the new station are already started.
My #1 railway YouzTube channel I watch! Hope to see you travel globally again soon!
The speed is limited to 300 Km but this train and also the Frecciarossa can speed up at 350 km!
Very interesting video, there are two things I didn't like about Italo, one is that it doesn't have a bar/cafeteria and only vending machines for snacks, coffee and cold drinks (separate mention that they don't work with cards or contactless), the second thing is that half of the car has a one-way drive arrangement and the other half in the opposite direction, so on one side they are looking straight ahead and on the other they travel backwards.
Of course, at least I didn't have the problem I had with Trenitalia and that is that they didn't accept my card on the web, so at least I was able to travel without problems.
The times I traveled with Frecciarossa are the ones I was invited or paid for me there…
AGVya is Alstom's latest achievement in high-speed rail transport
ITALO 🇮🇹 New Trasporto Viaggiatori Italo (NTV-Italo)
Alstom AGV ETR 575 The ETR 575 AGV of the Italian private operator Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori Italo NTV-Italo, better known as Italo, whose shareholder is the SNCF, has nothing in common with the TGVs of the Alstom group.
The project was launched in 2003 and was awarded a contract by RENFE for the Madrid-Barcelona line. The Alstom group and CAF are proposing a joint offer of 32 Béliers of the Pégase prototype. After all, it is TALGO that is connected to the S-102 series and Siemens to the S-103 series.
In 2006, the Ferrari boss, also from the last Italo action group, was impressed by the Pegasus prototype converted AGV Autotrice à Grande Vitesse during a visit to La Fortuite in La Rochelle.
NTV Italo was fascinated by the product and signed a contract in January 2008 for 25 trains called ETR 575 worth 1.5 billion euros, including maintenance for 30 years.
The ETR 575 has an Electro Treno Rapido and consists of 11 cars with 460 seats and a length of 200 meters. The distributed motorization allows a high speed compared to the SNCF Réseaux TGV of 360 km / h, limited to 300 km, unlike the TGV where the transmission chain is guaranteed by high pressure engines to limit maintenance costs. The 7500 kW power is quadrupled for 5 bogie motors distributed along the length of the train, the bogie motor has 2 synchronous traction motors. The power consumption is 3 kV DC and 25 kV AC. The connection to the TGV also increases the size of the upper part of the system, allowing the air conditioning to be moved and the ceiling to be exposed, thus enlarging the space.
The height and width add up under the possibility of exceptional services such as a cinema car and a car lounge. The ETR 575 is divided into 4 service levels: Smart, Confort, Prima, Club Executive.
The first 17 trains will be manufactured in La Rochelle, the other 8 by Alstom in Salvigliano, Italy. Deliveries took place from December 2010 to 2013. After a two-year test phase, commercial operation took place under an Italian name in April 2012. As of March 30, 2013, the fleet was completed by 25 ETR 575 trains in a different configuration. The maintenance contract with Alstom at the Nola depot ensures the constant availability of 21 of the 25 trains.
I hear a narcissist speaking loudly on his mobile phone in the cabin. This is forbidden in France and often enforced by conductors and other passengers who remind them to go to the vestibule. Keeping train cabins a sanctuary is key for traveling together sanely.
Merci c'était un beau compte rendu de ce service. En tant que visiteur de l'Italie par contre, j'hésite à prendre les trains à grande vitesse, car on est plus souvent qu'autrement sous terre vu le relief du pays… et on ne peut pas profiter des paysages magnifiques. C'est dommage que l'AVG n'ait pas eu beaucoup de clients. Italo et c'est tout !! Pourtant c'est visiblement un très bon train, à ma connaissance, il n'a pas connu de problèmes, il est très confortable et peut fonctionner dans de nombreux pays, peut même aller jusqu'à 360 km/h et est plus économique en électricité que le TGV. Mais la SNCF préfère les voitures 2 niveaux pour ses TGV. Et les autres ont visiblement préféré Siemens ICE, je me demande pourquoi Alstom n'a pas été capable d'en vendre d'avantage.
I am amazed that they use SMN in Florence ; but was surprised to learn they are planning a new underground station there !
Italo is really good I travelled in train Italia ferrioresa from Rome to Venice it was the worst experience they announce.platform 10 mins before departure and even cancelled the last moment I was allowed to another next train that was delayed too worst ever I booked in premium class but I was travelled in 2nd in next as they said you need to meet the train managers in next train hence have to settled in 2nd class after 40 mins roaming into the coaches Italy train management are the worst while I travelled in Spain and Switzerland is awesome always punctual no unnecessary delays and cancellations
While here in Australia we dither over whether to build a high-speed line between our major east coast cities, which are linked at present by hundreds of flights a day! And the cost keeps rising!
I tested Italo a month ago, on the way to the David Gilmour concert in Rome. My connection from Switzerland arived late in Milano Centrale and the Italo train I had booked was gone. I went to the Italo counter. There I was downgraded from prima business to smart economy and had to pay an additional 34 euros – For a downgrade plus an hour delay! You usually get some refund if you arive an hour late at your destination and downgrades don't cost extra. Not at Italo. I asked the lady at the counter if she would recommend trenitalia for the next trip. She didn't even answer. Conclusion: Great train but the service was the worst I have ever experienced.
These trains are much better than the Frecciarossa, because they don't have all the awful table seats.
Seeing the countrysides are always great from trains. Thanks!
The best train in recent years by Alstom…and of course it was bought by an italian company and not SNCF.
I don't really understand why even the new TGV-M has a decrepit push-pull config with locomoties.
If it's a fixed set, have distributed traction man! Here in Italy we've been doing since the 1930s (ETR 200), in Japan even the very first Shinkansen had distributed motors.
Better performance, smoother acceleration, enanched weight distribution = less track wear, redudancy and fail-safe operation…
Is it really necessary to walk through every car and "toilets time?" So overdone
I wasn't aware Ouigo was entering the Italian rail network, what routes are they going to do initially? I'm imaging along the core Turin-Milan-Florence-Rome?
16:18 Italy is so beautifull
I love Italo. I was in Italy in November 2023 and I took it from Roma to Firenze, Firenze to Venice then Venice to Milano. Each time not only did I get the seat I was looking for but I also got alerts to get on the next earlier train. Clean, friendly and very efficent!
Good。🤗🤗🇹🇼🇹🇼
That is so cheap compared to UK trains. You couldn't get standard class on LNER or Avanti for that for a comparable distance.
My only objection would be having to ride backwards the whole way. I appreciate when the seats are reversible to face the direction of travel..
I used Italo back in 2016 between Rome and Salerno and back. I really enjoyed the experience of the smooth ride.
Great video but I miss your comments they are always so insightful!
Still well done
There are limits of weight per axle, especially on conventional rail (on a curve, too heavy a train will exert lateral force on rail that could rair the rail to roll over – there are other reasons as well). The use of Jacobs bogies reduces the number of axles, but also reduces resistance and helps achieve higher speeds. the AGV is a compromise with traction motors above each bogie which adds weight to bogies. When Alstom did the duplex TGVs, it was a huge challenge to get the weight per car within the limits of the basically 2 axles per car (Jacobs bogie at each end). Doing a duplex on AGV would go over the weight limits because each car needs to have that additional traction and power/electronics equipment. (Talgo has 1 axcle bogies, and this is why its cars are much shorter since the weight of each car has to be supported by 2 * 1/2 axle or 1 axle. )
Germany likes EMUs but their ICE trains have conventional bogies, so 4 axle per car.
Nice video of a great operator and of two beautiful stations!
I'm Italian and I travel a lot with Italo, I would like to add just a couple of info to your video:
– Italo's fleet is all Alstom and is composed by 25 AGV and 26 EVO. Moreover, Italo has announced the acquisition of about 15 new trains that will enter in service by 2028
– the tranport of bicycle and escooter is permitted on board when folded
– the Direttissima Roma-Firenze has actually not that many tunnels being a HS line and the views are just stunning…the train is running immersed in the countryside of Tuscany and you can see beatiful landscape as vineyards and strade bianche along with very nice and picturesque villages in the background
– the high load factor of the italian HS trains is given by the popularity and goodness of the operators (Italo and Frecciarossa) and by the geographical structure of the country, with basically most of the big cities connected by 2-3 lines, in contrast with the french and spanish network, where you basically have an hub-and-spoke system with radial lines spreading from the capital.
It such a shame that NTV ended up being the only customer for the AGV. In my opinion, it's technologically superior to even the Euroduplex not to mention the advantages of distributed traction such as faster acceleration and less track wear compared to concentrated power such in the case of the TGV. I think the decision to use Jacobs bogies may have steered potential customers away due to the fact that splitting the cars for expansion would be a lot more complex compared to the Velaro (which is the only other High Speed EMU that can reach 300km/h and above).
Great video! First class is superb! Thanks Thibault.👍😀👌
I'm not a fan of competition in passenger rail travel. The only time I find it acceptable is if there still is some sort of offer that lets you take all trains regardless of operator (like KlimaTicket, Generalabonnement, OneTicket) and if the infrastructure still has capacity for growth in that sector.
I can only speak for Germany, where the latter is not the case(infrastructure is heavily overloaded). There, DB and its competitor Flixtrain can mostly just take track slots away from the other. It happened for example between Hamburg and Berlin a few years back. The commuters that used the ICE services to get from Wittenberge (a station with ICE stops between Berlin and Hamburg) to Berlin weren't able to get to their jobs anymore because Flixtrain stole that slot from DB and didn't accept DB's monthly passes. Flix doesn't even sell monthly passes.
And even worse, Flix didn't even run its train there most of the time, the slot just remained vacant. Because it wasn't profitable enough for them. I just hate that system man….
They are super cheap and have a lot more offers than Trenitalia. Definitely my to-go whenever I need to travel inside the country
A ride on an Italian train would not be complete without a person yapping on the phone all the way.
I like traveling on Frecciarossa 1000 in Executive Class. It’s the buttery soft yellow leather seats and good food served seat side that keep me coming back for more when traveling in Italy. 😉👍🏻
Why are you against liberalization on short distance and local trains?
I don't like vending machines so I prefer trains with bistro cars, however I did enjoy my Italo ride from Milan to Venice and Trenitalia's Executive Class from Milan to Rome last January.