FS Class E.428

The FS Class E.428 was a class of Italian state railways electric locomotives introduced in the 1930s for fast services on the newly electrified Milan to Rome main line, which ran at 3,000 volts direct current. The requirement went to the design team of Giuseppe Bianchi at Florence, and the result was a large, heavy and powerful machine, four metres longer than the E.626 and ten to twenty tonnes heavier. The original specification asked for a service speed of 150 km/h, later reduced to 130 km/h. After trials with a lighter sister class, the E.326, the designers split the central drive into two motorised bogies, and the first locomotive, E.428.001, was released in May 1934. A first series of 97 units was built until 1937, followed by a second series of 81 with a more profiled driving cab that set the style of later Italian locomotives. A third order of 1939 for 80 locomotives was halted by the Second World War after 39 were completed, some of them built by Ansaldo. The class was withdrawn in the 1980s.