Italo-NTV one of the five wonders of railways

ITALY (eTN) – Italo, the name given to the train built by Alstom for NTV Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori – New Travellers Transport), the private Italian Railway system, is among the five wonders of railway engineering. To quote it to the top in the world is the prestigious international channel “Discovery Channel” in whose program “World’s Top 5” it compared the best examples of various railway stations categories, assigning the palm of the best for each criterion examined.

In the selection made by American engineers, Discovery Italo ripped the “gold medal” for speed and was second in the overall final standings. On the starting grid, selected among the competitors, in addition to the train NTV, were the giants of the transport of iron ore, the Brazilian MRS logistics and South African Transnet; the underground Marmary of Instabul (passenger transport); and technological tunnel for freight trains Lotschberg in Switzerland.

The five marvels were assessed on the following criteria: speed, slope, capacity, length of tunnels, and frequency. First overall in the test of “speed” was Italo, tested at 300km/h, the maximum allowed, on the Rome to Naples route, although, reminds Discovery, the prototype of its parent broke that barrier of speed at 570 km/h at full load and safety during a test. To cement the primacy, the revolutionary design and the system of monitoring the operation of the train, is the Alstom maintenance base in the city of Nola (Naples district). Italo did, however, win the second podium in the slope category on the Rome to Naples exceeds an inclination of 2.1%, although “its purpose is not to climb, but run!”

And the third accolade is for the length of the tunnels crossed – in less than a minute and a half to 6.7 km of the longest tunnel AV (Alta Velocita-High Speed) between the capital of Rome and Naples, the chief town of the Campania region, and also ranked third for the frequency of convoys on the route of 50 per day. The fourth in its scope is its weight of 410 tons – “a ridiculously low weight for a high-speed passenger train that has to be light to be able to whiz.”

In the closing classification, Italo earned the silver, just behind the winner of the “railroad record,” the Lotschberg base tunnel, which crosses the finish line for both the advanced technology that ensures safety for its tunnel, the longest in the world at 34.6 km, to 60 million tons of rock excavated.