FS ALn 772
Encyclopedia
Lokomotiva pod stejnou řadou ALn 556 jezdila i ve Francii, Španělsku, Chorvatsku, Německu a dokonce na Slovensku. Dokonce v letech 1942-1943 jezdila i v Československu.
The ALn 772 (Automotrice Leggera a nafta, Light Diesel motor car) series are a group of Diesel Multiple Unit
s built for the Italian
public railway company Ferrovie dello Stato
(FS) between the 1930s and the 1950s. As the first project in Italy to abandon the automobile-derived design and adopt a comprehensive "rolling stock" approach, it represents the link between the simple and sturdy Littorine and the modern Diesel units.
built into the first railway engines ordered by the Fascist government
of Benito Mussolini
, the ATR 100 and the later Littorine ALn 56 and ALn 556.
The increasing demand for passenger transport and the growth of the tourism business during the 1940s, driven by the government's sponsorship of mass tourism (villeggiature popolari) and by the transformation of the railways into mass transport, required FS to put into service a growing number of faster and more comfortable passenger trains. This new generation of rolling stock was to supplement the existing Littorine on the new Direttissimo and Rapido services (two kind of fast links between major cities).
The service requirements called for a huge quantity of new stock in a limited time frame. Rather than buying more units of the existing specialized designs, FS decided to specify a single "unified" type which would be able to fulfill different mission profiles. Maintenance operations would also benefit from the availability of standard spare parts, a quite unusual feature in Italy at the time.
The specifications required the new units to provide not only higher speeds but also increased capacity and better passenger comfort; at least 70 well-spaced seats, 1st- and 2nd-class only, were mandated. The approved design had a total of 72 seats, hence the 772 designation; the doubling of the leading number indicates multiple unit capability.
sets; this shortcoming will be addressed by the later models ALn 880.
The cars featured two small driver's cabs at both ends, which housed the vertical engines and transmission groups. The two platforms behind the driver's cabs were not identical; the first one, giving access to a small lavatory, was bigger and fitted with some folding seats; the one on the opposite side had a small luggage compartment. Both could be accessed by one door on each side of the car, giving access in turn to the driver's cab and the main passenger compartment.
The latter was divided in three areas: a 2nd-class compartment with 24 seats on the lavatory side, arranged in twin facing rows; a 16-seats 1st-class compartment in the middle, with the same arrangement; and another 32 2nd-class seats on the luggage compartment side. A central aisle ran for the entire length of the car.
With a few exceptions described below, the paint scheme was the standard brown-and-red of the time, called castano-isabella.
, FS ordered three prototypes of the new units to an experienced but smaller producer of parts and components based in Milan
, Officine Meccaniche
di Milano (OM). The contract was quite challenging for OM, who until then had never managed to build a new line of rolling stock as the main contractor; that was the well-guarded fief of the two giants of the Italian heavy industry. The prototypes, built around the Fiat ALn 72 chassis, were delivered in 1937 and designated with the non-standard codes ALn 72 3001-3003.
After the initial tests showed results far above expectations, FS awarded OM a contract for about 200 units. The effort was too big to be dealt with by the outfitter alone, and Fiat was chosen as a partner to build the chassis and the car mechanics. The electrical and technical parts were to be built internally by OM. To make accounting easier, the contract was formally split between the two builders. The cars were divided pro-forma into three series: the first was a single lot of 100 units to be delivered by Fiat, with numbers from 1001 to 1100; the remaining 96 units were to be delivered by OM in two series, the first lot being numbered from 3201 to 3250 and the second one from 3251 to 3296.
The first series unit was delivered by Fiat in May 1940. After a testing session along the Faentina
railway line in Tuscany
, the 772.1001 car was certified as compliant to FS specifications and brought into service; the first OM-built unit was delivered in November of the same year. Building of the first 196 units continued at a regular pace up to 1943. In 1939 the local railways Ferrovie Padane bought the three prototype cars from FS and two years later ordered from OM two additional units (FP ALn 72 1004-1005). Those units were equipped with a different transmission gearing, which slowed them to a maximum speed of 100 km/h while providing the cars with 8 kW of additional power.
The outbreak of WWII
reduced dramatically the request for passenger transport during the following years, except for large army convoys which were unsuited to the small Littorine; both Breda and OM converted their production to war effort. The ALn 772 diesel engines were brand-new, powerful and compact, so they were mostly cannibalized
to equip the Italian Navy
's MAS torpedo boats. Fuel shortages and heavy bombing along the railroads made the remaining units useless for several years.
OM could resume production only in 1948, thanks to the economic relief provided by the Marshall Plan
and the huge efforts into bringing back the mangled national rail network to its pre-war standards. From 1948 to 1957 OM delivered 123 more units (two series, 3301-3341 and 3342-3423), demonstrating a slow but steady recovery of its factories from the devastation caused by the war. Existing pre-war units were almost spared by the conflict, but were not untouched. Five units had to be scrapped, a couple of them without ever entering service, while 27 more were too badly damaged to be recovered and were dismantled to use as spare parts.
In 1949 the SIF company, manager of the private railway
Siena-Buonconvento-Monte Antico, ordered two additional cars to OM; unlike the FS units, which had a 4-number code, these were originally numbered 101 and 102. The units were refit to carry 16 first-class and 56 second-class seats, while a the third unit (marked as Ln86.106) was modified for third-class service with 86 seats and no engine. Later on, with SIF's acquisition by FS in 1956, the three units were brought back to standard codes: the powered units were renumbered as ALn 772 3297-3298, and the powerless car was refitted with engines and transformed in ALn 772.3299.
After the war the most "noble" rolling stock (mainly ETR200s) was terribly damaged: the ALn 772 units had to be used to provide rapid service in the whole Italian peninsula, especially on the high-profile services of Milano-Venezia-Trieste
; Palermo
-Messina; Taranto
-Bari
and Ancona
; Cagliari
-Olbia
, and later on in Sicily
. The huge number of available ALn 772 cars in post-war Italy led to their use even on less important services and secondary lines. Some of them were even used on "emergency recover", a quite unusual duty for a fast passenger vehicle. During the 1950s, the ALn 772 were the true backbone of Italy's fast passenger fleet.
Meanwhile, the fortunes of the series were not limited to the FS fleet, or to Italy alone: in 1949 three more special units were delivered to the Polish
railways PKP
, to be replicated and to serve on fast routes. In Italy, the former Ferrovie Padane units were re-branded as ALn 772 in 1961 and assigned to charter trains; one of them is still in service as of late 2006. The ALn 772.1009 unit, refitted with a first-class lounge, was brought back to its original fitting in 1970.
The 772 series only begun to become obsolete in the 1970s, while being replaced by the new ALn 773 and ALn 668 introduced specifically for fast and short-range services. At the same time, the age of the 772 stock and their extremely intense use had made breakdowns more and more frequent, particularly on the hydrodynamic circuit and the exhaust systems. Moreover, the asbestos
coating was beginning to wear down and was not compliant with the stricter health safety regulations concerning its use
.
In 1981 the routine maintenance was suspended, and the group was scheduled to be dismissed in a very short time frame. Only two units (3247 and 3326) were kept in active service on the Novara
-Varallo Sesia
line: on April 12, 1986, the railway administration issued a service order relegating all remaining units to the shed. The units were then decommissioned and after lying abandoned for some time, were scrapped in an extremely short timespan. Only five of them survived this fate (see Preserved units below).
The chassis
, while similar in design to the earlier ALn 556, was one of the first in Italy to be electrically welded; the soundproofing was efficiently achieved thanks to the massive usage of asbestos
fiber. With age, this material decayed, becoming dangerous for human health: this is the main reason why so few units were saved from scrapping.
The twin BXD engines equipping the ALn 772 units were built by OM under license of the Swiss patent holder Adolph Saurer AG
. With a displacement
of 14.330 liters, each of the straight-6
, direct-injection, naturally aspirated engines had a power rating of 110 kW at 1,500 rpm, with a total of 299 hp per unit. In the fourth series, the engine was adapted to a new fuel pump
which was deemed more reliable, and was consequently renamed OM-BXD-54.
The huge displacement of the BXD engines required a steady and massive air intake in order to keep an optimal air-fuel ratio
. The problem was solved by the OM engineers by placing the engines at the two extremities of the unit, hidden behind a huge cast iron
grid equipped with wide air intakes. The new engines were not fitted straight on the bogies (the common technology in the 1930s), but were suspended over the chassis in order to dampen vibrations.
The bogie
s, in turn, not having to sustain the engines' weight, were redesigned by taking inspiration from those of the first electrical railway motor cars: they featured journal boxes on the external part of the frame, a main volute spring
suspension
and an auxiliary one based on the traditional leaf-spring
design. This bogie design, which was very easy to build and maintain, also proved to be very reliable in the long run.
After WWII, the Polish national railways PKP (Polskie Koleje Panstwowe
) faced the task of rapidly rebuilding the whole of their rolling stock, but the national economy had been destroyed by the war. During the German
and Soviet
occupations, whole factories were dismantled and stolen, to be rebuilt in the mainland of the occupying country. Most railway lines were out of service: the steel tracks had been stolen, the lines were bombed.
The main priority was rebuilding the Polish passenger service in short time: electrified lines were far too expensive, as were powerful steam locomotives, so the Diesel motor car technology was chosen as the cheapest and fastest to set up.
In the past PKP had already used some motor cars, mainly built by Hipolit Cegielski
, in Poznań
, by Fablok
in Chorzów
, or by Lilpop, Rau & Loewenstein in Warsaw
. They included a fleet of six fast cars called Luxtorpeda
, with top speed of 120 km/h, which operated from 1934 to 1939 between Warsaw, Katowice
, Kraków
, Zakopane
and Poznań. Railcars were also used between Lwów and Boryslaw
.
Even after the destruction caused by the war, Italy could boast a top-level know-how in railway technologies, and the Marshall Plan investments were pushing the most important heavy industries to a quick recovery of their production capabilities: one of the first goals achieved was restarting the ALn 772 production lines.
Conversely, Italy was burdened by a dire lack of good coal. The national production was extremely scarce, and the Balcanic coal offered by the United States was of poor quality, its dangerous fumes leading to such accidents as the Train 8017 disaster
which occurred in Balvano
in 1944 - one of the worst rail accidents of Europe to date, with over 500 victims.
Being aware of this situation, Franciszek Tatara, then president of the agency controlling the Poznań vehicle factory, had the idea of buying some of the new Italian cars and paying them with good-quality coal. The ALn 772s were chosen because their design was quite similar to pre-war Polish cars; replicating them locally would thus be an easier task.
The ALn 772 design was then used by OM to build a special group of three units, which were named SD80 and marked with codes 09051 to 09053, which were then transferred to Poland in 1949, through Austria
n and Czech
railways. But the government plans of building a Polish version of ALn 772 soon proved impossible for technical reasons: in post-war Poland no companies could be find with the precision skills and production capability which were necessary to build the engines and transmissions for the new vehicles; moreover, the availability of steel and other required materials was scarce.
The units entered into service during 1951, as intercity trains, at first under the designation MsBx, then MsAx from 1956, following the scrapping of the third class. They were used at first on the Warsaw-Cracow line, then (from 1953 to 1959) on the Warsaw-Gdynia line; at that time, they started being unable to cope with the increasing passenger traffic and were replaced by conventional steam trains.
On 1960, the three Italian motor cars were renamed SD80-01 to SD80-03 and moved to the East Warsaw compartment, where they were divided: the first two entered into service between Warsaw, Bydgoszcz and Poznań
, while #03 was used at first for the express train Blekitna Fala (Blue Wave) doing Summer runs between Miedzyzdroje
and Warsaw; it was then moved to the Gdynia line for the rest of the year. The Blekitna Fala was the fastest train in the PKP fleet during the 1960s, with an average speed of 100.9 km/h.
The SD80 units were to remain in service in Poland until 1967, albeit with smaller roles after 1962 since they were replaced by the Hungarian SN61. In 1962 they were used for a short time as LECH trains (rapid passenger trains) between Warsaw and Poznań with an average speed of over 90 km/h, until the electrification of the line the following year. Then they were removed and underwent heavy restoration works from 1963 to 1966.
Officially retired in 1967, they were converted to SR70 units and assigned to inspection service until 1974, this time based in South Gdansk. Unit #01 was dismissed on January 1, 1969, #03 on December 31, 1972 (but it had been out of service since 1967) and #02 remained in use until April 30, 1974, having been used from 1969 to 1971 as a staff train.
The service records of the #03 unit, the only ones that have been preserved, showed that the motor car has run for 904.218 kilometers, with average speeds of 75 to 100 km/h.
Of the three units, only #02 was preserved for some time in the Warsaw Railway Museum. The car was later removed and abandoned, without any apparent explanation, just 500 meters away from the museum yard. The wreck is still there, abandoned to vandalism and decay.
The ALn 772 (Automotrice Leggera a nafta, Light Diesel motor car) series are a group of Diesel Multiple Unit
Diesel multiple unit
A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple unit train consisting of multiple carriages powered by one or more on-board diesel engines. They may also be referred to as a railcar or railmotor, depending on country.-Design:...
s built for the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
public railway company Ferrovie dello Stato
Ferrovie dello Stato
Ferrovie dello Stato is a government-owned holding which manage infrastructure and service on the Italian rail network. The subsidiary Trenitalia is the main rail operator in Italy.-Organization:Ferrovie dello Stato subsidiaries are:...
(FS) between the 1930s and the 1950s. As the first project in Italy to abandon the automobile-derived design and adopt a comprehensive "rolling stock" approach, it represents the link between the simple and sturdy Littorine and the modern Diesel units.
Background
The design of the ALn 772 series draws on the well-established experience that FiatFiat
FIAT, an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino , is an Italian automobile manufacturer, engine manufacturer, financial, and industrial group based in Turin in the Italian region of Piedmont. Fiat was founded in 1899 by a group of investors including Giovanni Agnelli...
built into the first railway engines ordered by the Fascist government
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
of Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
, the ATR 100 and the later Littorine ALn 56 and ALn 556.
The increasing demand for passenger transport and the growth of the tourism business during the 1940s, driven by the government's sponsorship of mass tourism (villeggiature popolari) and by the transformation of the railways into mass transport, required FS to put into service a growing number of faster and more comfortable passenger trains. This new generation of rolling stock was to supplement the existing Littorine on the new Direttissimo and Rapido services (two kind of fast links between major cities).
The service requirements called for a huge quantity of new stock in a limited time frame. Rather than buying more units of the existing specialized designs, FS decided to specify a single "unified" type which would be able to fulfill different mission profiles. Maintenance operations would also benefit from the availability of standard spare parts, a quite unusual feature in Italy at the time.
The specifications required the new units to provide not only higher speeds but also increased capacity and better passenger comfort; at least 70 well-spaced seats, 1st- and 2nd-class only, were mandated. The approved design had a total of 72 seats, hence the 772 designation; the doubling of the leading number indicates multiple unit capability.
General description
The increased passenger capacity, wider spaces and higher comfort levels were a good answer to all requirements specified by FS and a great progress compared to earlier models then in service. However, despite their multiple-unit capability, the lack of passageways meant that the ALn 772 units were not really suitable for multiple trainTrain
A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...
sets; this shortcoming will be addressed by the later models ALn 880.
The cars featured two small driver's cabs at both ends, which housed the vertical engines and transmission groups. The two platforms behind the driver's cabs were not identical; the first one, giving access to a small lavatory, was bigger and fitted with some folding seats; the one on the opposite side had a small luggage compartment. Both could be accessed by one door on each side of the car, giving access in turn to the driver's cab and the main passenger compartment.
The latter was divided in three areas: a 2nd-class compartment with 24 seats on the lavatory side, arranged in twin facing rows; a 16-seats 1st-class compartment in the middle, with the same arrangement; and another 32 2nd-class seats on the luggage compartment side. A central aisle ran for the entire length of the car.
With a few exceptions described below, the paint scheme was the standard brown-and-red of the time, called castano-isabella.
History
Shunning the bigger companies like Fiat and BredaBreda
Breda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. The name Breda derived from brede Aa and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. As a fortified city, the city was of strategic military and political significance...
, FS ordered three prototypes of the new units to an experienced but smaller producer of parts and components based in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Officine Meccaniche
Officine Meccaniche
Officine Meccaniche or OM was an Italian car and truck manufacturing company, founded in 1899 in Milan as Societa Anonima Officine Meccaniche...
di Milano (OM). The contract was quite challenging for OM, who until then had never managed to build a new line of rolling stock as the main contractor; that was the well-guarded fief of the two giants of the Italian heavy industry. The prototypes, built around the Fiat ALn 72 chassis, were delivered in 1937 and designated with the non-standard codes ALn 72 3001-3003.
After the initial tests showed results far above expectations, FS awarded OM a contract for about 200 units. The effort was too big to be dealt with by the outfitter alone, and Fiat was chosen as a partner to build the chassis and the car mechanics. The electrical and technical parts were to be built internally by OM. To make accounting easier, the contract was formally split between the two builders. The cars were divided pro-forma into three series: the first was a single lot of 100 units to be delivered by Fiat, with numbers from 1001 to 1100; the remaining 96 units were to be delivered by OM in two series, the first lot being numbered from 3201 to 3250 and the second one from 3251 to 3296.
The first series unit was delivered by Fiat in May 1940. After a testing session along the Faentina
Faenza
Faenza is an Italian city and comune, in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, situated 50 km southeast of Bologna.Faenza is noted for its manufacture of majolica ware glazed earthenware pottery, known from the name of the town as "faience"....
railway line in Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
, the 772.1001 car was certified as compliant to FS specifications and brought into service; the first OM-built unit was delivered in November of the same year. Building of the first 196 units continued at a regular pace up to 1943. In 1939 the local railways Ferrovie Padane bought the three prototype cars from FS and two years later ordered from OM two additional units (FP ALn 72 1004-1005). Those units were equipped with a different transmission gearing, which slowed them to a maximum speed of 100 km/h while providing the cars with 8 kW of additional power.
The outbreak of WWII
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
reduced dramatically the request for passenger transport during the following years, except for large army convoys which were unsuited to the small Littorine; both Breda and OM converted their production to war effort. The ALn 772 diesel engines were brand-new, powerful and compact, so they were mostly cannibalized
Cannibalization of machine parts
Cannibalization of machine parts, in maintenance of mechanical or electronic systems with interchangeable parts, refers to the practice of removing parts or subsystems necessary for repair from another similar device, rather than from inventory, usually when resources become limited...
to equip the Italian Navy
Regia Marina
The Regia Marina dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 after Italian unification...
's MAS torpedo boats. Fuel shortages and heavy bombing along the railroads made the remaining units useless for several years.
OM could resume production only in 1948, thanks to the economic relief provided by the Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
and the huge efforts into bringing back the mangled national rail network to its pre-war standards. From 1948 to 1957 OM delivered 123 more units (two series, 3301-3341 and 3342-3423), demonstrating a slow but steady recovery of its factories from the devastation caused by the war. Existing pre-war units were almost spared by the conflict, but were not untouched. Five units had to be scrapped, a couple of them without ever entering service, while 27 more were too badly damaged to be recovered and were dismantled to use as spare parts.
In 1949 the SIF company, manager of the private railway
Private railway
A private railroad is a railroad run by a private corporation, as opposed to a railroad run by a public sector.-Japan:In Japan, refers to a railway line owned and operated by private sector. Although Japan Railways Group companies are private entities, they are not considered private railways...
Siena-Buonconvento-Monte Antico, ordered two additional cars to OM; unlike the FS units, which had a 4-number code, these were originally numbered 101 and 102. The units were refit to carry 16 first-class and 56 second-class seats, while a the third unit (marked as Ln86.106) was modified for third-class service with 86 seats and no engine. Later on, with SIF's acquisition by FS in 1956, the three units were brought back to standard codes: the powered units were renumbered as ALn 772 3297-3298, and the powerless car was refitted with engines and transformed in ALn 772.3299.
After the war the most "noble" rolling stock (mainly ETR200s) was terribly damaged: the ALn 772 units had to be used to provide rapid service in the whole Italian peninsula, especially on the high-profile services of Milano-Venezia-Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
; Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
-Messina; Taranto
Taranto
Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....
-Bari
Bari
Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
and Ancona
Ancona
Ancona is a city and a seaport in the Marche region, in central Italy, with a population of 101,909 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region....
; Cagliari
Cagliari
Cagliari is the capital of the island of Sardinia, a region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name Casteddu literally means castle. It has about 156,000 inhabitants, or about 480,000 including the outlying townships : Elmas, Assemini, Capoterra, Selargius, Sestu, Monserrato, Quartucciu, Quartu...
-Olbia
Olbia
Olbia is a town and comune of 56,231 inhabitants in northeastern Sardinia , in the Gallura sub-region. Called Olbia in the Roman age, Civita in the Middle Ages and Terranova Pausania before the 1940s, Olbia was again the official name of the town after the period of Fascism.-Geography:It is the...
, and later on in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
. The huge number of available ALn 772 cars in post-war Italy led to their use even on less important services and secondary lines. Some of them were even used on "emergency recover", a quite unusual duty for a fast passenger vehicle. During the 1950s, the ALn 772 were the true backbone of Italy's fast passenger fleet.
Meanwhile, the fortunes of the series were not limited to the FS fleet, or to Italy alone: in 1949 three more special units were delivered to the Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
railways PKP
Polskie Koleje Panstwowe
is the dominant railway operator in Poland.The company was founded when the former state-owned operator was divided into several units based on the requirements laid down by the European Union...
, to be replicated and to serve on fast routes. In Italy, the former Ferrovie Padane units were re-branded as ALn 772 in 1961 and assigned to charter trains; one of them is still in service as of late 2006. The ALn 772.1009 unit, refitted with a first-class lounge, was brought back to its original fitting in 1970.
The 772 series only begun to become obsolete in the 1970s, while being replaced by the new ALn 773 and ALn 668 introduced specifically for fast and short-range services. At the same time, the age of the 772 stock and their extremely intense use had made breakdowns more and more frequent, particularly on the hydrodynamic circuit and the exhaust systems. Moreover, the asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...
coating was beginning to wear down and was not compliant with the stricter health safety regulations concerning its use
Asbestos and the law
This article concerns asbestos-related legal and regulatory issues. Litigation related to asbestos injuries and property damages has been claimed to be the longest-running mass tort in U.S. history...
.
In 1981 the routine maintenance was suspended, and the group was scheduled to be dismissed in a very short time frame. Only two units (3247 and 3326) were kept in active service on the Novara
Novara
Novara is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With c. 105,000 inhabitants, it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin. It is an important crossroads for commercial traffic along the routes from Milan to Turin...
-Varallo Sesia
Varallo Sesia
Varallo , commonly known as Varallo Sesia, is a comune and town of c. 7,400 inhabitants in the province of Vercelli in the Piedmont region of Italy...
line: on April 12, 1986, the railway administration issued a service order relegating all remaining units to the shed. The units were then decommissioned and after lying abandoned for some time, were scrapped in an extremely short timespan. Only five of them survived this fate (see Preserved units below).
Technical details
The ALn 772 units were the first to be equipped with an experimental Ljungström hydrostatic transmission (model OM-SRM-DF 1,15); the initial results were good. It was only years later, with age and the increased frequency of start-stop cycles required by the short-range services the units had been re-assigned to, that the transmission gearing started to show heavy signs of wear and reliability problems.The chassis
Chassis
A chassis consists of an internal framework that supports a man-made object. It is analogous to an animal's skeleton. An example of a chassis is the underpart of a motor vehicle, consisting of the frame with the wheels and machinery.- Vehicles :In the case of vehicles, the term chassis means the...
, while similar in design to the earlier ALn 556, was one of the first in Italy to be electrically welded; the soundproofing was efficiently achieved thanks to the massive usage of asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...
fiber. With age, this material decayed, becoming dangerous for human health: this is the main reason why so few units were saved from scrapping.
The twin BXD engines equipping the ALn 772 units were built by OM under license of the Swiss patent holder Adolph Saurer AG
Saurer
Adolph Saurer AG was a Arbon, Switzerland , based manufacturer of trucks and buses, under the Saurer and Berna brand names, and active between 1903 and 1982....
. With a displacement
Engine displacement
Engine displacement is the volume swept by all the pistons inside the cylinders of an internal combustion engine in a single movement from top dead centre to bottom dead centre . It is commonly specified in cubic centimeters , litres , or cubic inches...
of 14.330 liters, each of the straight-6
Straight-6
The straight-six engine or inline-six engine is a six-cylinder internal combustion engine with all six cylinders mounted in a straight line along the crankcase...
, direct-injection, naturally aspirated engines had a power rating of 110 kW at 1,500 rpm, with a total of 299 hp per unit. In the fourth series, the engine was adapted to a new fuel pump
Fuel pump
A fuel pump is a frequently essential component on a car or other internal combustion engined device. Many engines do not require any fuel pump at all, requiring only gravity to feed fuel from the fuel tank through a line or hose to the engine...
which was deemed more reliable, and was consequently renamed OM-BXD-54.
The huge displacement of the BXD engines required a steady and massive air intake in order to keep an optimal air-fuel ratio
Air-fuel ratio
Air–fuel ratio is the mass ratio of air to fuel present in an internal combustion engine. If exactly enough air is provided to completely burn all of the fuel, the ratio is known as the stoichiometric mixture, often abbreviated to stoich...
. The problem was solved by the OM engineers by placing the engines at the two extremities of the unit, hidden behind a huge cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
grid equipped with wide air intakes. The new engines were not fitted straight on the bogies (the common technology in the 1930s), but were suspended over the chassis in order to dampen vibrations.
The bogie
Bogie
A bogie is a wheeled wagon or trolley. In mechanics terms, a bogie is a chassis or framework carrying wheels, attached to a vehicle. It can be fixed in place, as on a cargo truck, mounted on a swivel, as on a railway carriage/car or locomotive, or sprung as in the suspension of a caterpillar...
s, in turn, not having to sustain the engines' weight, were redesigned by taking inspiration from those of the first electrical railway motor cars: they featured journal boxes on the external part of the frame, a main volute spring
Spring (device)
A spring is an elastic object used to store mechanical energy. Springs are usually made out of spring steel. Small springs can be wound from pre-hardened stock, while larger ones are made from annealed steel and hardened after fabrication...
suspension
Suspension (vehicle)
Suspension is the term given to the system of springs, shock absorbers and linkages that connects a vehicle to its wheels. Suspension systems serve a dual purpose — contributing to the car's roadholding/handling and braking for good active safety and driving pleasure, and keeping vehicle occupants...
and an auxiliary one based on the traditional leaf-spring
Leaf spring
Originally called laminated or carriage spring, a leaf spring is a simple form of spring, commonly used for the suspension in wheeled vehicles...
design. This bogie design, which was very easy to build and maintain, also proved to be very reliable in the long run.
The Polish versions: SD80 and SR70
Polskie Koleje Panstwowe
is the dominant railway operator in Poland.The company was founded when the former state-owned operator was divided into several units based on the requirements laid down by the European Union...
) faced the task of rapidly rebuilding the whole of their rolling stock, but the national economy had been destroyed by the war. During the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
occupations, whole factories were dismantled and stolen, to be rebuilt in the mainland of the occupying country. Most railway lines were out of service: the steel tracks had been stolen, the lines were bombed.
The main priority was rebuilding the Polish passenger service in short time: electrified lines were far too expensive, as were powerful steam locomotives, so the Diesel motor car technology was chosen as the cheapest and fastest to set up.
In the past PKP had already used some motor cars, mainly built by Hipolit Cegielski
Hipolit Cegielski
Hipolit Cegielski was a Polish businessman and social and cultural activist. He founded H. Cegielski - Poznań S.A. in 1846.-References:...
, in Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, by Fablok
Fablok
Fablok is a Polish manufacturer of steam locomotives, based in Chrzanów. Until 1947 the official name was The First Factory of Locomotives in Poland Ltd. , Fablok being a widely used syllabic abbreviation of Fabryka Lokomotyw. It is now named "BUMAR - FABLOK S.A. "...
in Chorzów
Chorzów
Chorzów is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. Chorzów is one of the central districts of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - a metropolis with a population of 2 million...
, or by Lilpop, Rau & Loewenstein in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
. They included a fleet of six fast cars called Luxtorpeda
Luxtorpeda
Luxtorpeda was a common name of a famous Polish train, which ran on some of the most important rail routes of Poland in the 1930s. A Luxtorpeda consisted of a single, first-class only railcar, with its own internal combustion engine.- Name :...
, with top speed of 120 km/h, which operated from 1934 to 1939 between Warsaw, Katowice
Katowice
Katowice is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, on the Kłodnica and Rawa rivers . Katowice is located in the Silesian Highlands, about north of the Silesian Beskids and about southeast of the Sudetes Mountains.It is the central district of the Upper Silesian Metropolis, with a population of 2...
, Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, Zakopane
Zakopane
Zakopane , is a town in southern Poland. It lies in the southern part of the Podhale region at the foot of the Tatra Mountains. From 1975 to 1998 it was in of Nowy Sącz Province, but since 1999 it has been in Lesser Poland Province. It had a population of about 28,000 as of 2004. Zakopane is a...
and Poznań. Railcars were also used between Lwów and Boryslaw
Boryslaw
Borysław may refer to:* Boryslav, Ukraine, called Borysław in Polish*Borysław, Łódź Voivodeship...
.
Even after the destruction caused by the war, Italy could boast a top-level know-how in railway technologies, and the Marshall Plan investments were pushing the most important heavy industries to a quick recovery of their production capabilities: one of the first goals achieved was restarting the ALn 772 production lines.
Conversely, Italy was burdened by a dire lack of good coal. The national production was extremely scarce, and the Balcanic coal offered by the United States was of poor quality, its dangerous fumes leading to such accidents as the Train 8017 disaster
Balvano train disaster
In the Balvano train disaster of March 2/3, 1944, some 426 people illegally riding a steam-hauled freight train died of carbon monoxide poisoning when the train stalled on a steep gradient in the Armi tunnel. The accident occurred in southern Italy, near Balvano .-Circumstances:Naples suffered...
which occurred in Balvano
Balvano
Balvano is a small city and a commune in the province of Potenza .The recent history of Balvano is connected to several catastrophes. In 1944, a steam train stalled in a nearby railway tunnel, suffocating 426 passengers. It was also one of the towns nearly destroyed by the 1980 Irpinia earthquake....
in 1944 - one of the worst rail accidents of Europe to date, with over 500 victims.
Being aware of this situation, Franciszek Tatara, then president of the agency controlling the Poznań vehicle factory, had the idea of buying some of the new Italian cars and paying them with good-quality coal. The ALn 772s were chosen because their design was quite similar to pre-war Polish cars; replicating them locally would thus be an easier task.
The ALn 772 design was then used by OM to build a special group of three units, which were named SD80 and marked with codes 09051 to 09053, which were then transferred to Poland in 1949, through Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n and Czech
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
railways. But the government plans of building a Polish version of ALn 772 soon proved impossible for technical reasons: in post-war Poland no companies could be find with the precision skills and production capability which were necessary to build the engines and transmissions for the new vehicles; moreover, the availability of steel and other required materials was scarce.
The units entered into service during 1951, as intercity trains, at first under the designation MsBx, then MsAx from 1956, following the scrapping of the third class. They were used at first on the Warsaw-Cracow line, then (from 1953 to 1959) on the Warsaw-Gdynia line; at that time, they started being unable to cope with the increasing passenger traffic and were replaced by conventional steam trains.
On 1960, the three Italian motor cars were renamed SD80-01 to SD80-03 and moved to the East Warsaw compartment, where they were divided: the first two entered into service between Warsaw, Bydgoszcz and Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, while #03 was used at first for the express train Blekitna Fala (Blue Wave) doing Summer runs between Miedzyzdroje
Miedzyzdroje
Międzyzdroje is a town and a seaside resort in northwestern Poland on the island of Wolin on the Baltic coast. Previously in the Szczecin Voivodeship , Międzyzdroje has been in Kamień Pomorski County in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999. Międzyzdroje has a population of 6000 .It is...
and Warsaw; it was then moved to the Gdynia line for the rest of the year. The Blekitna Fala was the fastest train in the PKP fleet during the 1960s, with an average speed of 100.9 km/h.
The SD80 units were to remain in service in Poland until 1967, albeit with smaller roles after 1962 since they were replaced by the Hungarian SN61. In 1962 they were used for a short time as LECH trains (rapid passenger trains) between Warsaw and Poznań with an average speed of over 90 km/h, until the electrification of the line the following year. Then they were removed and underwent heavy restoration works from 1963 to 1966.
Officially retired in 1967, they were converted to SR70 units and assigned to inspection service until 1974, this time based in South Gdansk. Unit #01 was dismissed on January 1, 1969, #03 on December 31, 1972 (but it had been out of service since 1967) and #02 remained in use until April 30, 1974, having been used from 1969 to 1971 as a staff train.
The service records of the #03 unit, the only ones that have been preserved, showed that the motor car has run for 904.218 kilometers, with average speeds of 75 to 100 km/h.
Of the three units, only #02 was preserved for some time in the Warsaw Railway Museum. The car was later removed and abandoned, without any apparent explanation, just 500 meters away from the museum yard. The wreck is still there, abandoned to vandalism and decay.
Preserved ALn 772 units
The following are all known ALn 772 preserved units as of January 2008:- ALn 772.1033: On display at the Piedmont Railway Museum (Museo Ferroviario Piemontese) in SaviglianoSaviglianoSavigliano is a comune of Piedmont, northern Italy, in the Province of Cuneo, c. 50 kilometers south of Turin by rail....
. Until June 2007 it was the last unit from the FS fleet still in working order, following extensive restoration work by the association running the museum. - ALn 772.3244 and Ln 772.3261: Both on static display in AsseminiAsseminiAssemini is a comune in the Province of Cagliari in the Italian region Sardinia, located about 12 km northwest of Cagliari in the plain of the Cixerri, Flumini Mannu and Sa Nuxedda rivers. It includes notable forest area which are part of the Sulcis Regional Park...
. - ALn 772.3247: Refitted and used as a testbed for the STS (SoCiMiSocimiSocietà Costruzioni Industriali Milano, better known as Socimi, was an Italian manufacturing company based in Milan. It was a manufacturer of trams, metro trains; traction motors for these and for trolleybuses; and bodies for motorbuses and trolleybuses...
Tilting System); white livery, brown windows and red hull. - ALn 772.3265: As of 2007, this unit has been refitted with new engines and, assigned to Pistoia Historic Rail Depot, provides frequent historical trains in Tuscany Railways.
- ALn 772.3374: Used for a joint project by Fiat and the Italian national research institution CNRConsiglio Nazionale delle RicercheThe Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche or National Research Council, is an Italian public organization set up to support scientific and technological research. Its headquarters are in Rome.-History:The institution was founded in 1923...
, to test bogies with independent dampers on each wheel.
- The engines were removed and code changed to Vp.car.99-999-072. The engineless unit reached 160 km/h in a controlled test. The technologies developed by the research project proved unfit for railway use, but were recycled in the Formula OneFormula OneFormula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...
racing activities of the Fiat group.- ALn 772.3375: Not in working order, on display at the Pietrarsa National Railway Museum (Museo nazionale delle ferrovie di Pietrarsa) in PorticiPorticiPortici is a town and comune of the Province of Naples in the Campania region of southern Italy. It is the site of the Portici Royal Palace.-Geography:...
. - ALn 772 FP: In working order and in use as a charter train by Ferrovie Padane.
- ALn 772.3375: Not in working order, on display at the Pietrarsa National Railway Museum (Museo nazionale delle ferrovie di Pietrarsa) in Portici
External links
- Part I and part II of the FIMF (Italian model train association) bulletin on the ALn 772
- Technical specs
- ALn 772 photographs
- Drawings and technical chart
- Standard paint schemes
- A unit at the Museo Ferroviario Piemontese