STRIKING red Frecciarossa high-speed trains are set to infuse some Italian colour into the German long-distance passenger market when they begin operating between Munich, Milan and Rome for the first time in early 2027. Certification is underway of new ETR 1000 high-speed trains built by Hitachi Rail, and as Luigi Corradi, CEO of FS International, the international operating business of Italian State Railways (FS), confirms in an exclusive interview with IRJ, the operator is on course to launch as planned.
FS International is cooperating with German Rail (DB) and Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) on the service, one of 10 pilot projects identified by the European Commission (EC) in February 2023 in response to its December 2021 action plan to boost long-distance and cross-border passenger services in Europe. A single train will initially operate every day on the route, serving Innsbruck, Bolzano, Trento, Rovereto, Verona, and Brescia, and offering a journey time of approximately 6h 30min between Munich and Milan and 8h 30min between Munich and Rome. Journey times will fall in the long term following the opening of the Brenner Base Tunnel between Austria and Italy, currently expected in 2032.
FS intends to launch its own Munich - Berlin service in competition with DB from 2028.
This is not the limit of FS’ ambitions for the German long-distance market. Corradi reveals that FS intends to launch its own Munich - Berlin service in competition with DB from 2028, which will offer what he describes as a new level of service for German passengers.
Operating domestic services in neighbouring European countries reflects an evolution in FS’ international operations strategy in the past two to three years. From initially focusing on cross-border services between Italy and its neighbours, the operator is now actively pursuing competition with incumbents as an open-access operator on established routes in these markets.
Germany is the next stop in this journey following France, where FS has competed with French National Railways (SNCF) between Paris and Lyon since April 2022, extending the service to Marseille in June 2025, and Spain, where Iryo competes with Spanish national operator Renfe alongside SNCF subsidiary Ouigo Spain. FS holds a 51% stake in Ilsa, the consortium with Spanish airline Air Nostrum, which has been operating Iryo-branded Madrid - Seville/Málaga, Madrid - Barcelona and Madrid - Valencia/Alicante services since November 2022.
By pursuing international expansion, Corradi says FS is simply following market demand. He reveals that there were doubts over the attractiveness of offering a direct service between Milan, Turin, Lyon and Paris upon launch in December 2021. In particular, whether a 7-hour journey time could compete effectively with air. However, an average load factor of 83%, along with the similarly successful Milan - Zurich service, has allayed concerns and is now spurring FS to explore further expansion and establish Frecciarossa as “the best train in Europe.”
“If you want to be an international company in Europe today, you have to be ready to invest a lot of money.”
Luigi Corradi, FS International CEO
While there is an element of national prestige at play, international growth is fundamental to the wider FS business strategy. FS International has a projected turnover of €2.5bn in 2026 according to the FS budget and Corradi expects the company to “easily” achieve €3.5bn in the next five years. Overall, it is aiming for international activities to account for nearly 50% of FS business, contributing growth but also counteracting a falling share of the domestic market in Italy as public service obligation (PSO) contracts are put out to tender, and other operators, including Renfe and SNCF, seek a share of the Italian high-speed market where Trenitalia already competes with Italo, which has its own plans for expansion (see panel below).
While Corradi expects FS, as the incumbent, to retain its dominant position in the Italian market, “if you look only in Italy, there is a limit to growth,” he says. In practice, Corradi expects FS to double its international passenger numbers within the next five years, aligning its objective with the broader European Union (EU) target of doubling high-speed traffic by 2030 compared with 2020, as enshrined in the European Commission’s (EC) Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy of 2021.
“We have the strategy to disrupt the market and create a really international environment for railways,” Corradi says. “Quite soon Europe will become our domestic market.”
As well as Germany, FS is targeting further expansion in France. Corradi describes entering the French market as a real success story for FS given the major challenges it faced and substantial investment required. But with this work now largely complete, the emphasis is on growing traffic and increasing service frequency on its existing routes.
“We have an average load factor of around 45%,” Corradi says. “Is this enough? No. But we have a clear plan to grow by increasing use by business traffic. We increased the frequency of services between Paris and Lyon in December last year with this in mind. We also extended the service to Marseille, which is proving popular in the spring-summer, and we are working on how we can grow business in the winter.”
Next stop London
In contrast with consolidation on its route from Paris to the south of France, look north and FS is targeting expansion, specifically by introducing a new Paris - London service. FS is aiming to launch services through the Channel Tunnel in 2029, competing directly with Eurostar on what Corradi says is an iconic route.
He believes FS is well-placed to operate the cross-border service given its experience of operating in France, and in Britain as a partner with FirstGroup in the West Coast Partnership which operates Avanti-branded inter-city services under contract to the government. It has also consolidated its position in Britain with the creation in February of a new international consultancy business, FS Advisory. Based in London, the new company aims to offer advisory services to governments, institutional investors, operators, infrastructure specialists, and construction and engineering companies worldwide.
Getting to this point has been far from easy, however. Corradi says it is a project that has been years in the making, in particular working to meet the technical standards that apply to those operating through the Channel Tunnel. These have frustrated past attempts by other operators seeking to compete with Eurostar. And while overall the rules have become more manageable, Corradi says the adaptability of the ETR 1000 is proving crucial here as it did in France and Spain previously. “We know very well what we had to change in our train, it’s mainly linked to the fire extinguisher system, and it is much easier than it was a few years ago,” he says, confirming that a contract to supply the future cross-Channel fleet is “very close” to being signed.
“When we have signed the contract for the train, we can officially ask Getlink for access to the line,” Corradi says. “We don’t believe there will be any issues with getting access to the tunnel.”
Corradi is highly satisfied with the identification of a site in Paris as “the best solution” to the issue of securing a depot for the cross-Channel fleet as well as other trains operated by FS in France. He reveals that he began work on this “long before” negotiations over access to Eurostar’s Temple Mills site in east London entered the public domain. FS was one of four parties that applied for access to the depot, but ultimately lost out to Virgin Trains, which is planning to enter the cross-Channel market in 2030 using a fleet of 12 Avelia Stream high-speed trains built by Alstom.
Corradi says FS will seek to differentiate itself from the cross-Channel competition by replicating the strategy he says has proven successful in Italy, France and Spain, where he says FS has based its offer on being more attractive than the incumbent. This includes by offering more attractive fares, which Corradi says will inevitably fall as a result of competition, as well as a better onboard service including catering, and making it simpler for passengers to buy a ticket.
“We have the strategy to disrupt the market and create a really international environment for railways. Quite soon Europe will become our domestic market.”
Luigi Corradi
“We are looking at everything in and around the train to create a better service for our customers,” Corradi says. “We want to tailor our offer to different types of passengers, both leisure and business, so that we offer the right level of service at the right price.”
FS will run its services to Paris from St Pancras in London with no plans to serve Stratford, Ebbsfleet, or Ashford, intermediate stations on the high-speed line between the Channel Tunnel and London that have had no Eurostar services since the Covid-19 pandemic. This may change as discussions progress, however. “Often you have to compromise, with adding more stops you might be able to access more passengers, but you will also add more time to the journey,” Corradi says. He also believes there is significant potential to grow traffic overall on the route and doesn’t anticipate necessarily taking traffic away from Eurostar. “I strongly believe that the future of connections between the two countries is by train, not by plane,” he says. “We are trying to set something up that can increase overall demand.”
FS is not yet looking to compete with Eurostar on services to either Brussels or Amsterdam from London or Paris, although Corradi says this remains a possibility in the future. Similarly, he believes that services in Germany could eventually provide a springboard to enter eastern Europe, but again he is clear that this is just an aspiration with no firm plans in place yet to develop such services.
“We are looking at that because I believe we need to grow step by step,” Corradi says. “But even if we are a bigger company, the international market is complex, so we have to grow carefully.”
Challenges
One major issue he identifies is infrastructure, specifically securing track access and paths at stations and especially on popular and potentially lucrative routes which are already congested. Ultimately, Corradi says determination, persistence and cash are key to overcoming these obstacles. “If you want to be an international company in Europe today, you have to be ready to invest a lot of money,” he says.
Market entry is also hampered by variations in track access charges between countries, which are not yet regulated at EU level, much to Corradi’s irritation. “In France you can pay up to five times more to access some lines,” he says. “This is something you have to be really aware of when making your business case.”
Likewise, the lack of a universal signalling system is described as a “nightmare” by Corradi, who bemoans the general lack of progress with rolling out ETCS in the EU, despite it being under discussion for “decades.” He is equally scathing of the situation with certifying rolling stock. Establishing the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) as the single body responsible for certifying rolling stock in Europe was supposed to simplify this process. However, Corradi says it has added another layer of bureaucracy, with certification still required in the individual countries in which the train will operate, adding to costs.
“If each homologation was no longer unique, we could easily cut eight months from this time to market.”
Luigi Corradi
Adapting rolling stock is proving to be the work-around to solve many of these challenges. But while the ETR 1000 is designed to be easily equipped with different signalling systems and for different overhead supply voltages - a process Corradi was heavily involved with during his time at Bombardier Transportation, the co-developer of the original train, in the early 2010s (see panel below) - he points out that this makes new fleets more expensive and extends the time it takes to secure certification. “You need around a year to certify a train,” Corradi says. “If each homologation was no longer unique, we could easily cut eight months from this time to market. When you buy a car, you can drive the car everywhere. You are not blocked at the border. It should be the same for a train.”
Together these factors are delaying the introduction of new services on routes across Europe, meaning passengers are missing out and rail is missing the opportunity to increase its market share. “We are putting a lot into Paris - London, but we still won’t see our first train until 2029,” Corradi says. “The world is moving very fast and we still need too much time to move from an idea to the start of operations.”
Ticket distribution is another sticking point. “I believe in the future we must have a system where we can compare different trains and give the customer the best opportunity to select exactly what they want,” Corradi says. He wants a European ticketing platform that makes it straightforward for passengers to book cross-border tickets, including other modes, and is a strong believer in the Open Sales and Distribution Model (OSDM), a platform developed by the International Union of Railways (UIC) that links different ticketing distribution systems. “The future is interoperability and the ability to offer people a single ticket for their journey from door to door,” he says. “For this OSDM is very important.”
However, he is less certain if Europe’s rail operators can set the rules, hinting that they will have to follow what the market decides, leaving the door open to the development of new ticketing platforms by third parties. “Even if we are the experts, we have to do what people want,” he says.
While these political issues continue to cause frustration, Corradi recognises the work taking place to improve the situation and the positive regard in which the growth of high-speed rail in Europe is now held.
He praises the vision of the European High Speed Masterplan, published by the EC in November, which provides a blueprint for an inter-connected high-speed network for Europe and addresses many of the challenges Corradi identifies. The EC’s Passenger Mobility Package, announced last month, also potentially lays the foundation for enhanced multi-modal ticketing and cross-border journeys by requiring, among other things, that ticket vendors show all available tickets for a journey, although the Community of European Railways and Infrastructure Companies (CER), of which FS is a prominent member, has roundly criticised the proposal.
FS has already made impressive progress with its steady entry into neighbouring high-speed and long-distance markets, discovering the recipe for success despite numerous technical and political challenges. And with further expansion in its sights, the distinctive fleet of Frecciarossa high-speed trains is set to become even more prevalent on Europe’s network in the coming years.
FS International subsidiaries
IN addition to its open-access high-speed activities in Europe, FS is present as a regional operator in Germany and Greece.
Netinera is Germany’s third-largest passenger operator, holding several regional rail and bus contracts across 18 different brands, working in 11 states as well as in the city regions of Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg. It also operates regional cross-border services to France, Poland and the Czech Republic.
FS purchased Arriva’s German business following the takeover of the British transport group by German Rail (DB) in 2010. DB sold Arriva in 2024.
FS acquired Greek passenger and freight operator Hellenic Train from the Greek government in 2017. It operates mainline services between Athens and Thessaloniki along with commuter trains in Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras. The company also acquired publicly-owned rolling stock maintenance company EESSTY in 2019.
Italo also eyes German market
ITALIAN open-access high-speed operator Italo-NTV has confirmed plans to start operations in Germany in April 2028 using a fleet of 26 high-speed trains to be built by Siemens Mobility. However, the company will not place the expected €1.2bn order before receiving confirmation of its requested paths.
In an interview in April with Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore, Italo-NTV CEO, Gianbattista La Rocca, explained that the company set up a German subsidiary last year, its first venture outside Italy. The new company has obtained a passenger operator’s licence and is in the process of obtaining its safety certificate.
La Rocca also reported that Italo-NTV has agreed a contract with Siemens covering the supply and maintenance of the new fleet that will be built in Germany. But in order for the contract to be signed, it is essential that infrastructure manager DB InfraGO provides Italo-NTV with “a clear and reliable picture” of the paths it has requested by the end of May.
“We have to sign the contract with Siemens by June,” La Rocca says. “We cannot postpone this date, as doing so would result in a significant delay in the delivery of the trains, which would make the project no longer viable.”
The contract is expected to include an option for a further 14 high-speed trains and an additional €2.4bn will be spent under the 30-year maintenance element of the contract, as well as to meet start-up costs including staff training and investment in station and IT facilities.
Italo-NTV plans to operate 50 trains a day on a 1300km network serving 18 cities on the north-south Munich - Cologne - Dortmund and Munich - Berlin - Hamburg corridors.
FS expands ETR 1000 fleet
FS’ domestic passenger operating business Trenitalia originally placed a €1.54bn order with a consortium of Bombardier and AnsaldoBreda for 50 ETR 1000 high-speed trains in 2010, which entered service between 2015 and 2020. Hitachi Rail, which acquired AnsaldoBreda in 2015, subsequently purchased the technology from Bombardier following its acquisition by Alstom, and is now the sole supplier of the ETR 1000.
Trenitalia recently confirmed an order with Hitachi for another nine 360km/h ETR 1000 trains, adding to a contract signed in 2023 for 36 trains as well as 10 trains ordered under a previous option. The operator is planning to order another two and 17 trains under separate deals, and plans to have 57 of these trains in service by 2029 and 74 trains by 2031, primarily on cross-border services and domestic routes outside Italy.
The ETR 1000 is designed to operate in Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium. Hitachi says the latest generation of the train is equipped with an advanced traction system for improved efficiency and a new design of traction motor. The trains are also equipped with Hitachi’s HMAX digital asset management system which is designed to process data in real-time to optimise operation, maintenance, and energy consumption.
In addition to Trenitalia, Ilsa purchased 23 series 109 high-speed trains, a variant of the ETR 1000, to operate Iryo services in Spain.
