Trains and other things: Milano

I'm at Milano Centrale station, arriving from Zurich with ETR 610 Eurocity train.

Milano Centrale is the main station in Milan, and the current building was opened 1931. It has 24 tracks and it services train connections for domestic high speed and local services as well as international services (e.g. SBB to Switzerland and Thello to France).

Frecciabianca is a high speed train service from state owned Trenitalia. Above is FS Class E.414 train built 1996 and operating speeds at up to 250km/h.

Another Frecciabianca train is FS Class E.402B. Both trains are using locomotives with coaching stock.

Minuet regional train built by Alstom and belongs to Coradia Meridian family.

The facade is 200m wide and 72m high, a record when it was built.

ETR 610

Nuovo Tranporto Viaggiatori (NTV) operates under brand Italo Treno, and it is Europe's first private open access high speed train operator. Here is a billboard announcing tickets from 25EUR.

The building was constructed by architecht Ulisse Stacchini, and the design was modelled after Union Station in Washington DC.

The building is monumental and reminds of the old Roman empire structures.

ATM Class 1500 trams in Milan, also known as type 1928.

Milano Porta Gribaldi is the seconds largest train station in Milan, and it is just 10 minutes walk from Centrale. From here there is TGV trains to Paris, and many regional services.

TGV train to Paris is taking 7h, and is passing through Lyon and Torino.

Garibaldi towers behind the station.

TGV Réseau triple current train is operating from France to Italy and Belgium. The trains were built 1994-1996.

View from Piazza Gae Aulenti promoted as Milan's own High Line (from New York).

View towards Porta Nuova.

Piazza Alvar Aalto named after Finish architect.

Back to Milano Centrale, Italo's AGV 575 and Frecciarossa ETR 500 trains.

Frecciargento ETR 600 train, similar to ETR 610 but used primarily for domestic Italian services.

Back to Italo trains. AGV (Automotrice à grande vitesse) is a further development of the french high speed TGV trains developed by manufacturer Alstom, with a top speed of 360km/h. NTV or Italo is the only customer of this type trains, so

Even though Italy has had high speed line (250km/h) between Rome and Florence already since 1986 and was at that time Europe's first high speed lines, the newest lines in Italy were opened recently between years 2005-2009, now connecting Italy from the north (Torino) to south (Napoli) at 300km/h lines. This together with open access rail business gave an opportunity for four italian businessmen to start the NTV company and compete with Trenitalia.

First services started in 2012. Today Italo offers services to all cities along the high speed network in Italy.

Frecciarossa ETR1000 and ETR500 high speed trains from Trenitalia.

ETR1000 is the newest train operated by Trenitalia, developed by Ansaldobreda and Bombardier, and it is Bombardier's version of the AGV Alstom high speed train and it is based on Bombardier Zefiro 300, allowing the speeds of 360km/h. In China Zefiro 380 is used as high speed train CRH380D. ETR1000 is claimed to be compatible in most European countries, so train services to Germany, France and Netherlands could be possible in the future.

Two ETR 600.

ETR524 (Italian) or RABe524 (Swiss) train built by Stadler and is part of the Flirt family.

TILO (Treni Regionali Ticino Lombardia) is a joint venture company between Italian Trenord and Swiss SBB, operating regional services north of Milano and south parts of Switzerland.