Mercitalia Rail, the freight arm of the Italian railway holding Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), finalised an agreement with French manufacturer Alstom for 70 Traxx Universal locomotives. The contract has a value of 323 million euros and includes the possibility of adding 30 more locomotives. With this deal, Alstom will also be tasked with the maintenance…
Category: Italy
Italy to start DAC tests, industry remains highly sceptical
The Italian Agency for the Safety of Railways and Road and Motorway Infrastructures (ANSFISA) recently announced that tests for the Digital Automatic Coupling (DAC) will soon commence in the country. However, many industry representatives pointed out that this is not necessarily the initiative Italy needs. It is also not clear how Italy will carry out…
Freight wagons in northern Italy knocked over by strong winds
For the second year in a row, the month of May is bringing waves of bad weather in northern Italy which disrupt the country’s rail freight industry. A few wagons of a convoy near Borgo Mantovano, a town between Verona and Bologna, was knocked over by the strong winds. “I have never seen freight trains…
UPS and CargoBeamer expand partnership with new test service
CargoBeamer and UPS are cooperating on an intermodal service connecting Italy to Greece. The two companies ran a successful test which entailed rail transport between Domodossola and Bari, crossing Italy from north to south, and a ferry connection to Patras, in northern Greece. This is not the first test run involving UPS and CargoBeamer. In…
NGOs express concerns over new Italy-China rail freight service
A new rail freight service for the import of agricultural product was recently established from Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwestern China to the Italian city of Salerno, near Naples. However, various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are saying that some of the cargo coming from the Chinese region may be the…
NGOs express concerns over new Italy-China rail freight service
A new rail freight service for the import of agricultural product was recently established from Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwestern China to the Italian city of Salerno, near Naples. However, various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are saying that some of the cargo coming from the Chinese region may be the…