D6130
Established Member
A friend in Italy has just informed me that the six TGV-Reseau tri-voltage units (4501-4506) used on the Paris-Milano services are in the process of being repainted in the latest SNCF 'in-Oui' livery and are losing their "Paris-Lyon-Turin-Milan" branding. 4503 is the first to be repainted. My Italian friend has speculated that this may be a prelude to SNCF withdrawing their international service once the FS Thello service on the same route, using Trenitalia ETR 400 'Frecciarossa' units starts. The start of the new service, originally planned for the June 2020 timetable, has now been postponed until June 2021 at the earliest, due to the pandemic, and there are planned to be only two services per day - as opposed to the current three on Summer peak dates. However, the new Trenitalia units will shave about 45 minutes off the current 7 hour 20 minutes journey time as they will be able to use the Torino-Milano high speed line, for which the TGVs don't have the required Italian high speed cab signalling equipment, forcing them to use the 160 km/h classic line via Chivasso, Xantia, Vercelli and Novara. If anyone knows in advance the timings of the new Thello services, I would be very interested, being a regular user of this service for my 'commute' between West Yorkshire and Tuscany.