Fiat Ferroviaria

Fiat Ferroviaria
Industry Transport
Fate Acquired by Alstom in 2000
Founded 1917
Headquarters Italy
Products Diesel locomotives
Railcars
Buses
Parent FIAT (up to 2000)
FS Class E626 locomotive, a mainstay of Italian railways starting from the 1930s.
The first model of 7131 railcar for the Argentine railways.
Cisalpino Pendolino (2008).

Fiat Ferroviaria was the rail division of FIAT of Italy.

Fiat Ferroviaria was founded in 1880.[1] Fiat Ferroviaria began building locomotives in the 1930s. It became part of FIAT in 1970. Fiat Ferroviaria acquired the rail business of SIG of Switzerland in 1995 forming the subsidiary Fiat-Sig.[1] The company had previously owned Argentine company Materfer until 1998,[2] which now operates as an independent company.

It was taken over in 2000 by the French Alstom, which continues to produce and support many of Fiat Ferroviaria's products.[1]

Pendolino

During the 60s-70s Fiat Ferroviaria developed the tilting technology for trains, with mixed success * and was the first (and the only one for several decades) to produce active tilting trains with the trademark of Pendolino.

In Italy several classes of Pendolinos were adopted starting from 1976 (ETR 401, ETR 450, ETR 460-65, ETR 480-85 and the Alstom made ETR600.

Following the success of the ETR 450 series introduced in Italy in 1988 (the 401 series introduced in 1976 consisted of only 2 trainsets and never operated regular commercial service, working more like an "on-wheel laboratory"), tilting systems including bogies, traction, electric and electronic equipment were ordered by several countries:

In 2001 also Virgin Trains ordered new tilting trainsets (Class 390), but Fiat Ferroviaria was sold to Alstom in 2000. For this reason they were sold under the "Alstom" brand, although the technology was still the same developed by Fiat Ferroviaria.

Directly or indirectly, 18 countries throughout the world applied the Italian Fiat Ferroviaria tilting technology to their trains, including United States and China.

See also

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fiat Ferroviaria.
  1. 1 2 3 History, Alstom
  2. ↑ "Venden quebrada Materfer" - Ambito Financiero, 8 October 2001.
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