The FS light electric vehicles

Friuli Venezia Giulia is region of extreme North-Eastern Italy that bounds with Austria and Slovenia. As responsibility for regional transport was handed over to local governments and Trenitalia cut all cross-border connections in that area, the Friuli Venezia Giulia managers studied the MI CO TRA plan (Miglioramento COllegamenti TRAnsfrontalieri, or improvement of cross-border connections) under which new services from Udine to Villach (A) and from Udine and Trieste to Ljubljana (Slo) were implemented and new trains were bought.
Two Siemens ES64U4 locos came in for the Austrian connections (classified as E 190.301 and 302, they run under the banner of the regional operator Ferrovia Udine Cividale, FUC, at the head of ÖBB coaches).
For the Slovenian services instead were acquired from the Spanish builder CAF eight five-bodies "elettrotreni" of the Civity model.
On duty from 2014-15, they are pure 3000 V DC with three powered and three non-powered bogies, develop more than 3200 Kw and have a top speed of 160 km/h. The sets became the new ETR 563 class and, although property of the region, are given to Trenitalia for services in the territory and for the Slovenian connections required by the Friuli government. Images courtesy of Stefano Paolini and his Photorail.it site, probably the best Italian site for railroad photography.

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Do you remember the Fyra flop?
In 2004 Dutch and Belgian incumbent operators ordered to Italian company AnsaldoBreda
19 sets of a never-before-built model to be used on the Amsterdam-Bruxelles high speed line.
After significant delays, only in 2012 they entered service but, after little more than a month, were retired because of supposed structural and technical issues.
Surely the trains had problems but also the customers' economical problems "to pay the bill" and new studies that not granted the viability of the service had an important role in the story, demonstrated by the fact that, to substitute 250 km/h trains, were bought 160 km/h locomotives. The entire fleet was returned to the builder and, after some years of dumping, were bought by Trenitalia, mainly to avoid that someone takes them to do commercial competition and to help Finmeccanica, owner of AnsaldoBreda, that was a state entity like FS group. 17 sets were refurbished (2 were destined as spare parts donors) and, from 2019, progressively entered service on duties only partly on HSLs.
Today, classified as ETR 700 and nicknamed "Multipla" from the homonym (horrific) fiat car, they are mainly used on Milan-Adriatic Coast services and, although suffering some problems, especially during the hot Italian summer, they are considered by Trenitalia crews as "not bad". Images courtesy of Stefano Paolini and his Photorail.it site, probably the best Italian site for railroad photography.

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It's always interesting to see what constitutes acceptable in various parts of the world. The British Rail Class 56 is another interesting example; early Romanian-built examples were considered poor quality in the UK, but quite acceptable in Romania...

And we arrived to the, until now, last chapter in the story of the italian state operator's light electric vehicles.

From 2019 Trenitalia and Trenord are receiving more than 200 sets commercially named Rock and a similar amount of Pop sets that, joint with the previous Jazz, are intended to change the music in regional services (hoping....)

Rock is a double decker elettrotreno for high patronage services that has been built in a 4, 5 or 6 bodies configuration (officially classified as ETR 421, 521 or 621) with an hourly power of 3400 Kw for a top speed of 160 km/h and comes from Hitachi Rail (former AnsaldoBreda). Pop instead is a single decker elettrotreno built by Alstom (from the Coradia Stream platform) for medium/low patronage services and declined in 3 or 4 bodies versions (ETR 103 or 104) with the same 160 km/h top speed. Aesthetically ugly, especially the rock, they are painted in Trenitalia regional or Trenord livery and are too young to emit an evaluation.

My special thanks to Stefano Paolini. Without his gentleness all my topics should not be possible.
As usual, for questions, doubts, problems (no money) and more, ask to uncle Benny, hope to have interested you.

Ciao

I forgot the last newcomer,class BTR 813, that is, for Italy, a new concept of light vehicle.
This three-and-a-half bodies set is the first bi-modal train in passenger service there and was born because the Val d'Aosta region sole railroad line (from Prè Saint Didier to Aosta, Ivrea and Chivasso) is diesel operated in the upper part but the following stretch to Turin is wired and diesel trains are banned from the Turin city tunnel. So, to avoid an expensive change of loco or the need for passengers to change train at Ivrea or Chivasso, the Val d'Aosta regional government asked builders for an "elettrotreno" that can be feeded from 3000 V DC wires or from on-board generators.
Stadler derived the project from its Flirt 3 platform and added a short body that hosts pantograph, diesel generators and regulation equipment but, contrary to the GTW model of the same builder, the power pack feeds the extreme bogies of the set giving a wheel arrangement of Bo-2-2-2-Bo with three Jakobs intermediate bogies.
The hourly power is 2600 Kw under the wires and 700 Kw in diesel mode and top speed is 160 km/h (140 using generators).
The Val d'Aosta region ordered five sets (BTR 813.001-005) that were built between 2017 and 2019 and ceded to Trenitalia to be used on the valley line but only at half 2020 they entered in full service, mainly because of the italian bureaucracy; until now, seems to be good horses.
Not bad in shape, they were painted in the regional colours that please photographers but frankly seems me an hot dog painted with a phosphorescent highlighter.
In this image, courtesy of Stefano Paolini and his Photorail.it site, a BTR was shooted in generators mode on the scenic Val d'Aosta line. Similar trains, but feeded by batteries instead of wires, are being built for Trenord for the Lombardy diesel lines.

Ciao