Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS)

Updated: August 2026 – At Milano Centrale, a red high-speed train stands on one platform, a regional train in regional colours on the next, and a sign with a third company logo hangs over the platform. All three belong to Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane - and none of them is the holding company itself. If you want to document Italy properly, you need to be able to tell these levels apart.

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Category, number and location in one step - add the group affiliation later.

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A rail holding that also owns the road network

The Italian state railways emerged in 1905, when the state took over the previously privately run main lines. For almost ninety years that was a public authority. In 1992 it became a joint-stock company whose shares remained entirely with the state - and from 2000 the operation split into standalone companies, because European law requires the separation of network and operations.

What’s unusual is what has been added since. Since 2018 the national road authority has belonged to the group. The holding company thereby steers rail and trunk road infrastructure under one roof - a construction with hardly any parallel in Europe.

Four divisions, and what runs in each of them

The 2023 group restructuring sorted the group into four areas. This breakdown is more useful to you than any organisation chart, because it maps directly onto what happens at the trackside.

The last row is the one most often missing from sighting lists. A regional train in Rhineland-Palatinate or a freight train at the Brenner Pass can belong to the Italian state holding company without a single Italian marking appearing on the vehicle.

Specifically, two names are hiding behind that, both long established in Germany: the regional transport group Netinera and the freight operator TX Logistik, which belongs to the logistics division Mercitalia. Both operate with German licences, German staff and a German keeper marking. The group affiliation is purely a matter of ownership - it changes nothing about the operation and can’t be read off the vehicle. That’s exactly why it belongs in a field of its own in your logbook, not the same one as the operator.

Brands that get mistaken for companies

Frecciarossa is not an operator. It’s the product name for Trenitalia’s fastest long-distance service, just as Frecciargento and Frecciabianca stand for slower or more comfortably equipped variants. All three belong to a single company, and that company in turn belongs to the holding.

In regional services it gets even more confusing, because the regions act as the commissioning body and prescribe their own liveries. A regional train in South Tyrol looks different from one in Apulia, even though the same company runs both. You’ll know the principle from Germany - how to deal with it is shown in the guide Who’s actually running the train?.

Two further names are worth keeping cleanly apart. Trenitalia is the company behind all the passenger brands named above. RFI, by contrast, turns up on platforms, in signal boxes and at engineering works, but never runs a train. And the striking red competitor on the high-speed lines, Italo, doesn’t belong to the group at all - it simply uses the same tracks. At Milano Centrale and Bologna Centrale, all of these levels stand side by side within a few platforms.

From the Brenner Pass to Bologna in one logbook

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How you spot an FS company at the trackside

What the group means for trips and tours

Italy is unusually rewarding for spotters because several systems meet over a short distance. At Alpine border crossings, freight traffic arrives from the north, while in urban areas high-speed and regional services run on the same platform edge. A border station like Domodossola also shows you how vehicles are swapped between different electrification systems.

If you want to follow the group beyond the border, you’ll find its companies north of the Alps too. The overnight services in which the group is also active are covered in the overview of the European night train network.

Verdict

FS Italiane is a map, not an operation. It explains why network, long-distance and freight services in Italy have organisationally nothing to do with each other, even though they belong to the same owner - and why a German regional train can quietly belong to an Italian state holding company.

If you read the category, note the number and keep the group level separate, you have Italy well in hand. Everything else is legwork at the platform.

Document Italy systematically

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