FS Class ETR 450

The FS Class ETR 450, short for ElettroTrenoRapido 450, was the first series of Italian tilting trains, the family known as the Pendolino, and it was built by Fiat Ferroviaria. The project began in the 1970s and passed through several prototypes, the last of which was the ETR 401, before the ETR 450 units were built between 1987 and 1992. The first train entered service between Rome and Milan in 1988. Each train was made up of nine units and could reach 280 km/h, though service speed was 250 km/h, and the cars could tilt by up to 8 degrees in curves. The trains ran on the Rome to Bari, Rome to Ancona to Rimini and Genoa to Florence to Rome lines until the ETR 460, ETR 480 and ETR 500 pushed them to lower services. The tilting mechanism was switched off in 2004 after a shortage of gyroscopic controls, and the last trains left service in December 2014.