FS Class E.402

The FS Class E.402 is a family of Italian electric locomotives built for the state railway Ferrovie dello Stato and its passenger operator Trenitalia, mainly to haul medium speed express trains such as InterCity and Frecciabianca services at up to 200 km/h. It grew out of an early 1990s study in which FS worked with Ansaldo Transporti on the mechanical part and with TIBB, the Italian part of BBC, on the electrical part, aiming at a machine that could pull both heavy goods trains and high speed passenger trains at up to 220 km/h; Siemens later took over development of the electrical equipment. The class was one of the first Italian locomotives fitted with three-phase asynchronous induction motors. Six prototypes with an angular cab preceded the production batch. The later E.402B evolution, 80 units with different cabs and equipment, can run on both the Italian 3 kV DC system and the new 25 kV AC high speed lines, and some of them also carry gear for French 1.5 kV DC. In 2014 FS contracted the Spanish firm CAF to modernise the 40 series locomotives with a single cab for InterCity work.