European Railroad Discussion > Swiss patience with Italian Pendolinos draws to a close

Following the completion of an investigation into a fire onboard a Trenitalia ETR470 Pendolino operating over the Gotthard, today Andreas Meyer, SBB Chairman, has announced that effective with the December 2011 timetable change, only SBB owned and maintained Pendolinos will work in Switzerland. This applies to both ETR470 and ETR610 sets. Because of this change all EuroCity trains operated by these trains will terminate at Milano, meaning the end of through service to Venezia. Also it was announced that all the Swiss ETR470 Pendolinos will be withdrawn at the earliest possible date, unfortunately that won't be until December 2014.

I had the pleasure of riding one of these last month, not a memorable experience, poorly working lavoratories, tables that did not unfold properly, definitively not even close to Swiss quality standards. For the return trip I choose one the older viewliner type cars, what a pleasure to ride over the Gotthard pass in splendid sunshine! Some pictures form the return trip are attached.

-Inside of the the viewliner car
-train tracks at three different level in the Biaschina climbing up the southern slope of the Gotthard pass
-Bristen mountain on the northern side

ThomasE

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What a pictures form the mountains, thanks for posting!

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/schweiz/standard/Einer-ist-noch-uebrig/story/18568381

The customers wish the Pendolinos would be scrapped after the latest fire. For details see the article. It looks like the burned train was one of the new 600-ones, not the poor maintenance plagued old ones.

After my far from pleasant experience on a Virgin Pendolino ten days ago I really enjoyed the stable running of a TGV Hybrid today. Of course, it's not necessarily the train, more the track. Even so, fire at speed is not what the customer desires. At all. A difficult but correct decision has been made. The British Pendolino experience completely swayed me toward supporting HSR2.

SOO6617 Wrote:
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> Following the completion of an investigation into
> a fire onboard a Trenitalia ETR470 Pendolino
> operating over the Gotthard, today Andreas Meyer,
> SBB Chairman, has announced that effective with
> the December 2011 timetable change, only SBB owned
> and maintained Pendolinos will work in
> Switzerland. This applies to both ETR470 and
> ETR610 sets. Because of this change all EuroCity
> trains operated by these trains will terminate at
> Milano, meaning the end of through service to
> Venezia.

Why not replace them with regular locomotive-hauled stock?

And what is it about FS and constant problems with neighboring countries' railway administrations?

McKey Wrote:
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> http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/schweiz/standard/Einer
> -ist-noch-uebrig/story/18568381
>
> The customers wish the Pendolinos would be
> scrapped after the latest fire. For details see
> the article. It looks like the burned train was
> one of the new 600-ones, not the poor maintenance
> plagued old ones.

The photograph at the top of the Tagesanzeiger story is of a ETR 470, which is the type involved in the fire incident. The ETR 610 looks much less square in cross-section. The set damaged in the fire was Trenitalia maintained ETR 470 007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETR_610

The Italian ETR 600 looks nearly identical.

ChS7-321 Wrote:
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.
>
> Why not replace them with regular
> locomotive-hauled stock?

There isn't enough stock available anymore, particularly First Class and Restaurant Cars.
>
> And what is it about FS and constant problems with
> neighboring countries' railway administrations?

Mauro Moretti head of Trenitalia has been described by the normally diplomatic Swiss as "prickly". Their standards are lower than some of their neighboring administrations, and they have Berlesconi's support in flaunting EU rules. While they seem to take pride in their top level services, one needs only to look at the serious graffiti problem to see that the same cannot be said for their more mundane services.

The Finnish Pendolino S220 (400 series looking Pendolino) has also a tendency for serious under floor fires. Several severe incidents have been reported by the press here. Constant fires must be pretty embarrassing to the builder Alstom. Also, the existing units can not be withdrawn from service as easily as in Switzerland since there is no as fast alternative for these trains.

Photo 2 - Now THERE is some infrastructure! === === = === JLH

Regretably not all railway - the main viaduct is the Gotthard motorway, but at least you can see the railway at two levels, and the photo was taken from the third. It's a magnificent line, very heavily used, indeed probably the busiest mountain railway in terms of trains per day in the world. Suspect overall tonnage may be beaten elsewhere, but none of those have two passenger trains an hour as well as the freights.

This brings back more of those early memories - driving up the original St. Gotthard Pass road in a motor coach with 44 consecutive hairpin bends and no reinforced concrete to be seen! That would have been 1957.

The scene sort of reminds me of Glenwood Canyon, except for the two extra railroad tracks.

I was scheduled on EC 17 from Milano to Zurich June 17, and we were forced to change to a SBB train at Chiasso. Moreover there was no dining service.