A brief visual history of rail electrification in Italy

In this post, my first ever long-form post, I’m going to break down the long story of rail electrification that I summarized in that animated map posted a few days ago on twitter. It’s not an exhaustive description of all the minutiae, but a broad depiction of the macro trends. The periodization has been organized in nine main periods, each characterized by some specific trend. The end-begin years of each period are somehow arbitrary, just as any periodization tends to be. Take it as a way to organize the information in a readable format.

I hope you’ll enjoy.

Period 1 (1902 – 1920). Experimenting and opportunistic electrification.

In 1897 a Special Technical Committee was established by the Ministry of Public Works to study the possibility of electrifying mainline railways, as electric traction was already proving to be quite popular and highly effective in urban railways, such as tramways, during the 1890s. After two years of works, the Nicoli-Grismayer Committee issued its recommendations to start experimenting three systems that appeared at the time to be the most promising:

-        Third rail DC, at 600 v with high frequency 15 Hz current

-        Three-phase AC at 3600v 15 Hz from overhead wires, based on the technology developed by the Hungarian engineer Kálmán Kandó.

-        Accumulators aboard locomotives.

In 1902 the first two lines started electrified revenue service: the Valtellina railway North of Lecco using the three-phase AC technology, and the Varesine railway between Milan-Varese-Porto Ceresio. The experiment with accumulators on the Bologna-Verona line was soon abandoned as it was judged impractical and unreliable.

A few experiments with other overhead wire standards on private local railways were conducted in the following years, like the low voltage 600v DC akin to tramway electrification in Naples’s Circumvesuviana (1905), 4 000v DC in the Torino - Ceres (1920), and 11 000 AC in the Ferrovia Centrale Umbra (1920). However, electrification of the national network – that was nationalized in 1905 under the Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) – was dominated by three-phase AC during this early pioneering period. Mountain lines with steep grades and tunnels were the first sections targeted for electrification in the following years, notably in the North-West between Turin and Genoa, and especially on lines characterized by heavy freight traffic such as the Savona – Ceva and the two main Apennines crossing between Genoa and the Po Valley, the Linea dei Giovi and the Succursale. Even if the First World conflict slowed down its implementation, the Frejus-Turin-Genoa became the first itinerary to be fully electrified over a long distance in 1922.

Period 2 (1920 – 1933). Three-phase AC reaches maturity, first experiments with the 3 000v DC

The 1920s and early 1930s are still a phase of experimentation, but FS started to pursue mainline electrification on a larger, more systematic way. It was the most effective path to replace the imported “dark coal” with the domestically abundant “white coal”, as hydroelectricity was dubbed at the time, while allowing more powerful engines needed on the numerous mountain lines across the peninsula. During the 1920s, three-phase AC electrification was further extended to even more lines in the wider North-West, covering the whole rail along the Tyrrhenian Coast from Ventimiglia to Leghorn and wiring more mountain passes such as the Porrettana, the Pontremolese, the Roma-Sulmona (experimenting industrial 11 000 v) and the Brenner line.

But the big novelty of this period is the initial deployment of what will become the national standard in the following years: the 3000v DC was first rolled out in 1927 between Benevento and Foggia (part of the Naples-Bari line), and in a few local railways in the following years: Naples’s Cumana, Milan’s FNM, and the newly opened Aosta - Pré Saint-Didier and Rome-Viterbo. After this successful experiment, 3Kv DC was adopted as the blueprint for the big roll-out that happened in the following period.

Period 3 (1934 – 1942). Going full steam ahead…with electricity.

The 1930s can really be considered the decades when mainline electrification makes its Great Leap Forward (take no offense, Benito… or maybe yes, take it). Between 1934 and 1941, the main railway spine of the country from Milan to Reggio Calabria is completely electrified. Other important trunk lines, such as the Adriatic line from Bologna to Ancona, the Tyrrenian line between Rome and Pisa, the Orte-Falconara railway, the lines around Trieste leading to Austria and Yugoslavia, and the lower Brenner line between Bologna and Bolzano are all electrified, obviously with 3Kv DC. In the North-West, the very last extension of three-phase AC to more lines in Southern Piedmont and Liguria closes the golden age of that technology, which saw in Northwestern Italy its most extensive deployment worldwide.

It is worth mentioning that this Big Leap Forward is the result of two main factors. First, it was seen as a vital policy for a country that imported most of its coal but had plenty of local hydroelectric potential. Even more so in the wake of the Society of Nation’s sanctions following the colonial aggression of Fascist Italy against Ethiopia of 1935. Secondly, electrification was an inherent element of the wider modernization effort that had already started in the 1910s and brought to the opening of the proto-HSR Direttissime, the deep reorganization of major urban nodes with new, bigger stations in the 1920 - 30s (see Milan's case), and the development of the first high speed EMUs, such as the ETR.200 “Polifemo”. We can say that electrification was perceived as a fundamental characteristic of a State of the Art modern, fast, and reliable railway.

Period 4 (1945 – 1953). Reconstruction

The postwar decade was dedicated to reconstruction. Immediately after the end of WWII, electrification was completed in a few more lines where works were already started before the conflict, such as the Milan-Domodossola-Simplon line. But the bulk of the effort was put in rebuilding the railway infrastructure and the electrical equipment that were severely damaged during the war. During this period, a first wave of conversions from three-phase AC to 3kv DC took place in lines whose equipment was too damaged to be repaired, and thus were re-wired to the national FS standard. Notably, the oldest electrified lines part of the 1902 experiment were converted to 3kv DC during this period: the Milano-Varese-Porto Ceresio abandoned third rail traction in 1947-49 and the Valtellina line switched to 3 kv DC in 1951-53.

Period 5 (1954 – 1961). completing the interrupted work

During the late 1950s, FS finally resumed the work they had started in the 1930s but was brutally interrupted by the war, that is, wiring the entirety of the national core network. In a bit more than five years, the electrification of the remainder of the core network was completed: the Adriatic line down to Bari, the Bologna-Padova, the main East-West corridor in the North, connecting Turin-Milan-Verona-Venezia-Trieste, and the Alessandria-Novara-Luino, a main freight corridor from Genoa to the Alpine crossings. In Sicily, electrification finally gained momentum after a shy start in the late 1940s, with the completion of the Palermo-Messina-Catania, connecting the three main cities of the island.

Period 6 (1962 – 1976). The twilight of three-phase AC

After the big effort to complete electrification on the trunk network, the years between 1962 and the mid 1970s saw only a modest increase in new electrification. The main undertaking of that period is the full conversion of what remained of the three-phase AC network to 3Kv DC. The ageing equipment and the onerous maintenance of the double wire overhead pushed FS to engage in a progressive abandonment of this technology in what remained of it mainly in Southern Piedmont and Western Liguria. The last three-phase AC line was switched to 3 Kv DC on the 25th May 1976, closing an era that lasted for ¾ of a century.

Period 7 (1977 – 1996). A slow growth

The years from the mid 1970s to the late 1990s were characterized by a slow but continuous extension of electrification to secondary lines across the country and by its extension in the extreme South of the boot: down to Taranto, Brindisi and Lecce in Puglia; across the mountains between Taranto-Potenza and Battaglia; in the highlands of Sicily reaching Enna, Caltanissetta and Agrigento. Another remarkable fact of this period is the electrification of the newly built Direttissima Roma-Firenze (opened 1977-1991), which despite being built to High-Speed Rail specifications (such as geometries allowing 250km/h, up to 300 km/h in a short section), retained the 3Kv DC standard in order to allow phased opening and full interoperability with the legacy network.

Not shown in the map is the failed attempt in the 1980s to bring electrification on the main Sardinian “Y”, introducing for the first time 25kv AC in Italy. Even if 25kv AC locomotives were purchased specifically to be used in the island’s isolated network and some poles were erected along the line, the scheme was finally shelved. This project is paradigmatic of a phase of growing difficulties for FS (rising deficits and shrinking traffic) and of the growing corruption and mismanagement that characterized public works in Italy during the highly inflationary and politically turbulent 1970-80s.

Period 8 (2000 – 2009). High Speed Rail and 25 000v AC

During the first decade of the 2000s, a few more secondary branch lines were electrified, notably regionally owned local lines, as well as other lines criss-crossing the Po Valley, both to improve passenger train performances, and seamless freight service between lines that are used as bypasses of busy trunk lines. But the notable fact of that period is the first deployment of the more performing 25Kv AC on the newly built High-Speed network between Turin-Milan-Bologna-Firenze and Rome-Naples, which opened in phases between 2004 – 2009. Because of the mixed nature of the HSR service in Italy, with services using a mix of HSR and legacy lines to provide wider coverage across the country, the opening of the HSR coincided with the introduction of the first poly-current trains used in the domestic service (N.B.: poly-tension locomotives were already used for some international services, since neighboring countries use different standards).

Period 9 (2010 – 2022). Minor extensions on the fringes.

The years between 2010 and today are characterized by minimal improvements on the fringes of the network. The austerity following the Euro-Debt crisis essentially froze the most ambitious electrification plans. The only schemes that were undertaken, mostly during the second half of the decade, were primarily led by regional governments and funded through EU cohesion funds. Notable examples are the still ongoing electrification in Central Veneto basin and the so-called “Low Dolomites ring”, the electrification of the regionally owned FER secondary lines in Emilia-Romagna and the Ferrovie del Sud Barese (FSE) in Puglia, after the network was taken over by RFI, the national rail infrastructure manager.

What’s next? Back on expansion mode.

The recent years have seen again a major shift toward expansion of rail electrification, at a level unseen since the 1930s. The PNRR, the Italian version of the EU Recovery Plan, has been the main driver behind that major acceleration, by boosting ongoing projects that were dragging along and adding new ones that have long been in the whish list of regional governments. In total, some 1,650 km of new rail routes (roughly 8% of the combined FS and regional companies’ network) will be wired by 2026, bringing the percentage of the network under wires to around 80%. Yet, hydrogen fuel cells will be tested on the Brescia-Iseo-Edolo line, whose tight clearance and numerous tunnels make traditional electrification complex and onerous.

And to conclude the post, a graph showing the evolution of 3Kv DC electrification on FS network. The source is this online chronology. and various online sources for the ongoing and funded electrification 2022-26.