Cisalpino AG () was a
railway company
A railway company is a company within the rail industry. It can be a manufacturing firm or an operator. Some railway companies operate both the trains and the track, while, particularly in the European Union, operation of the track is undertaken ...
, referred to as CIS in timetables, operating international trains between Switzerland and Italy connecting
Basel
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...
,
Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen (; gsw, Schafuuse; french: Schaffhouse; it, Sciaffusa; rm, Schaffusa; en, Shaffhouse) is a list of towns in Switzerland, town with historic roots, a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in northern Switzerland, and the ...
,
Zürich
Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...
,
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
,
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
,
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
,
Trieste
Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...
,
Livorno
Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 158,493 residents in December 2017. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn (pronou ...
, and
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
. The company has its legal headquarters in
Muri bei Bern
Muri bei Bern is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Muri is first mentioned in 1180 as ''Mure'' while Gümligen appears in 1239 as ''Gumelingen'' or ''Gumlingin''
Archae ...
, Switzerland, and is jointly owned by the
Swiss Federal Railways
Swiss Federal Railways (german: link=no, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen, ''SBB''; french: link=no, Chemins de fer fédéraux suisses, ''CFF''; it, Ferrovie federali svizzere, ''FFS'') is the national railway company of Switzerland. It is usuall ...
and
Trenitalia
Trenitalia is the primary train operator in Italy. A subsidiary of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, itself owned by the Italian government, the company was established in 2000 following a European Union directive on the deregulation of rail transp ...
.
It was founded in 1993 to operate fast trains across the Alps using
tilting train
A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train (or other vehicle) rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide abo ...
s. In 2005, however, it also took over all daytime long-distance passenger trains between Switzerland and Italy run with conventional, non-tilting trains.
In the fall of 2009, the project was abandoned because of mounting bad press over the quality of service and the fiasco surrounding orders placed for new trains. The remaining trains were split nearly evenly between the two owners.
Until December 2012 the company owned the ETR 610 trainsets and leased them to Trenitalia and the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB CFF FFS). The company still exists, but its name is no longer used for public purposes.
Cisalpino tilting trains
The original service was branded under the name "Cisalpino," using the abbreviation "CIS" in timetables, but it has now been replaced by the name
EuroCity
EuroCity, abbreviated as EC, is a cross-border train category within the European inter-city rail network. In contrast to trains allocated to the lower-level "IC" (InterCity) category, EC trains are international services that meet 20 criteri ...
, using the abbreviation "EC". It operated with nine Italian
ETR 470
ETR 470 (''ElettroTreno 470'') is a high-speed tilting electric multiple unit, which is now only operated by the Greek-Italian private company, Hellenic Train. Introduced in September 1996, nine units were built for the Italo-Swiss firm Cisa ...
tilting trains (colloquially known as "
Pendolino
Pendolino (from Italian ''pendolo'' "pendulum", and ''-ino,'' a diminutive suffix) is an Italian family of tilting trains used in Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the UK, the US, ...
").
During the 2009 timetable, these trains were used on two main routes to connect Milan with northern Switzerland. Four trains per day and per direction ran via the
Lötschberg line
The Lötschberg is an Alpine mountain massif and usually associated with a major, historically important transit axis of the Alps in Switzerland with, at its core, the Lötschen Pass (german: Lötschenpass, Swiss German: ''Lötschepass''). The m ...
to Bern and Basel. Zurich was connected via the
Gotthardbahn
The Gotthard railway (german: Gotthardbahn; it, Ferrovia del Gottardo) is the Swiss trans-alpine railway line from northern Switzerland to the canton of Ticino. The line forms a major part of an important international railway link between nort ...
with seven daily trains, of which three were direct, and four others required a change in
Lugano
Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...
onto a leased
Swiss ICN train. One of the Zurich-bound trains originally ran as far north as
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
, but was cut back to
Schaffhausen
Schaffhausen (; gsw, Schafuuse; french: Schaffhouse; it, Sciaffusa; rm, Schaffusa; en, Shaffhouse) is a list of towns in Switzerland, town with historic roots, a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in northern Switzerland, and the ...
in 2006.
Train maintenance was carried out in the Milan Greco workshop by the Italian railway operator
Trenitalia
Trenitalia is the primary train operator in Italy. A subsidiary of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, itself owned by the Italian government, the company was established in 2000 following a European Union directive on the deregulation of rail transp ...
. Trains were staffed with personnel from Trenitalia as well as the
Swiss Federal Railways
Swiss Federal Railways (german: link=no, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen, ''SBB''; french: link=no, Chemins de fer fédéraux suisses, ''CFF''; it, Ferrovie federali svizzere, ''FFS'') is the national railway company of Switzerland. It is usuall ...
, while the catering was provided by the Italian company Cremonini.
The trains had two classes. In first-class, power sockets were available. The Cisalpino train included a dining car.
Problems
The Cisalpino ETR 470 trains then in service suffered from a bad reputation due to continuing problems with punctuality (breakdowns in mid-journey) and cleanliness (overflowing toilets) and a ride that caused customers to complain of nausea due to these being first-generation Pendolinos. The service between Zürich and Stuttgart was discontinued in mid-December 2006 for these reasons. In 2008, 83 Cisalpino trains failed to reach their destination and 11.2% suffered a delay of 15 minutes or more (average delay 28 minutes).
New trains
A batch of fourteen new tilting trains
ETR 610 ETR may refer to:
* East Turkestan Republic (disambiguation); first and second movements
* Express Toll Route, in Canada; Ontario Highway 407
* Entergy Corporation; NYSE stock symbol
* Edolo language; ISO language code
* Etravirine, a drug used to s ...
was ordered in 2004 from
Alstom
Alstom SA is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer operating worldwide in rail transport markets, active in the fields of passenger transportation, signalling, and locomotives, with products including the AGV, TGV, Eurostar, Avelia ...
(former
Fiat Ferroviaria
Alstom Ferroviaria S.p.A., former Fiat Ferroviaria S.p.A., is the Italian division of Alstom. Fiat Ferroviaria S.p.A. was the rail division of automobile manufacturer Fiat. It was founded in 1880 as Società Nazionale Officine di Savigliano. ) in the hope of providing much-needed relief, but have themselves had some problems. Entry into service, originally to come with the December 2007 timetable change together with the opening of the
Lötschberg Base Tunnel
, line = Lötschberg Line
, location = Traversing the Bernese Alps in Switzerland
, coordinates = –
, system = BLS, SBB CFF FFS
, status =
, start = Frutigen, canton of Bern,
, end = Raro ...
, was deferred and rescheduled for the spring of 2009. Again the trains were not ready for passenger-carrying service and their introduction was deferred to August 2009 when two did enter revenue-earning service. By December 2009 six trains were available, but the last train would be put into service only by December 2010, three years later than planned.
These new trains were ordered from the same consortium that built the original problematic trains.
Weight issues
During testing
"The new Cisalpino is too heavy for the Gotthard"
Tagesanzeiger (Translation). in 2009 it was found that the new ETR 610 ETR may refer to:
* East Turkestan Republic (disambiguation); first and second movements
* Express Toll Route, in Canada; Ontario Highway 407
* Entergy Corporation; NYSE stock symbol
* Edolo language; ISO language code
* Etravirine, a drug used to s ...
trains were too heavy for the main Gotthard route from Zurich to Milan for which they had been ordered. The weight of the train influences the permitted cornering speed due to forces on the track – the heavier the train the slower the cornering speed allowed. It was found the new trains would have to run so slowly that traditional trains without tilting technologies would be just as fast, thus calling the whole project into question.
EuroCity
Cisalpino also operated conventional EuroCity
EuroCity, abbreviated as EC, is a cross-border train category within the European inter-city rail network. In contrast to trains allocated to the lower-level "IC" (InterCity) category, EC trains are international services that meet 20 criteri ...
trains on two routes: from Basel or Zurich to Milan via Gotthard and from Geneva to Milan via Simplon. Three of these trains per day went all the way to Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
while one train continued from Milan to Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...
and Livorno
Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 158,493 residents in December 2017. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn (pronou ...
.
These trains were run with traditional Swiss or Italian EuroCity non-tilting rolling stock. All trains had first- and second-class coaches. A dining car was available only on some of the trains.
For the Venice-bound trains, maintenance was carried out in Venice. The other trains were maintained in Switzerland. Like the Cisalpino trains, crews are provided by Trenitalia in Italy and the Swiss Federal Railways in Switzerland.
During the 2009 timetable Cisalpino also operated three couples of Milan-Bellinzona
Bellinzona ( , , Ticinese ; french: Bellinzone ; german: Bellenz ; rm, Blizuna )is a municipality, a historic Swiss town, and the capital of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. The town is famous for its three castles (Castelgrande, Montebell ...
EuroCity with Italian stock.
Confusingly in 2010, whilst the name Cisalpino has disappeared from the timetables the older problematic ETR 470 trains live on. On the Zurich-Milan route, they are now also called EuroCity. The only way to tell which EuroCity is an old tilting train is to check whether folding bicycles are allowed (they are not allowed on tilting trains, although most folding bicycles actually fit into their luggage racks).
See also
* Intercity Neigezug (ICN)
*Cisalpin (train)
The ''Cisalpin'' was an express train that linked Paris-Gare de Lyon in Paris, France, with Milano Centrale in Milan, Italy. Introduced in 1961, it was operated by the SNCF, the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB-CFF-FFS) and the Italian State Railwa ...
References
External links
{{Commons category
Campaign to remove Cisalpino from service
Provides up-to-date statistics for non-arrival and delays.
Defunct railway companies of Switzerland
Former railway companies of Italy
EuroCity