Pendolino is a tilting train used in Finland, Italy and Slovenia. It's model number is S220 and it's developed and manufactured by Fiat Ferroviaria (now owned by Alstom).

The development for Finland started from the ETR 460 development for Italian State Railways and adapting it to specific requirements of VR and to the very cold climatic conditions. First two units were made by Rautaruukki-Transtech, a rolling stock company now part of Spanish Talgo.

The Pendolino has been conceived as a EMU (Electric Multiple Unit) to keep axle load to an extremely low level in order to allow the train to negotiate curves at a speed higher by up to 35% if compared witch conventional Intercity trains (loco plus trailers).

The S220, together with ETR 460, are the third generation of the Pendolino train, in service on the Italian State Railway network since 1988. The electrical traction equipment, with continuous power of 4000 kW, includes GTO chopper/inverter and asynchronous motors. The tilting system in the bogie, located entirely under the body, has permitted the reorganisation of the vestibules and passenger compartment areas. The bogie-to-body connection in extremely simple and easy to make, with clear advantages for what concers maintenance.

The body, which exploits large aluminium extrusion technology, has substantial modularity and allows for extremely low axle weight, whilst fully respecting the highest safety standards, and allows the best exploitation of the space with different loading gauges.

The trains for VR are composed of 6 vehicles, two traction units, each unit consists of two motor coaches with a 4QC/inverter/converter with four traction motors (one for each bogie), plus a trailer coach with high voltage equipment (25 kV and 50 Hz) and traction transformer. The end coaches are provided with aerodynamic shaped driving cab; on of the trailer coaches (TTC) has a special featured bar section.

Technical information