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The FS E.444 is a class of Italian railways
electric locomotive An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or ga ...
s. They were introduced in the course of the 1960s until 1975. Starting from 1989, all E.444s were upgraded as E.444R. The locomotives are nicknamed ''Tartaruga'' (tortoise). The original E.444 class carried a cabside cartoon of a speeding tortoise.


History


E.444 standard

The E.444 locomotive was designed in the 1960s as the first Italian electric locomotive capable to reach (in that period first high-speed trains like the Japanese
Shinkansen The , colloquially known in English as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan. Initially, it was built to connect distant Japanese regions with Tokyo, the capital, to aid economic growth and development. Beyond ...
and the French
TGV The TGV (french: Train à Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train"; previously french: TurboTrain à Grande Vitesse, label=none) is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF. SNCF worked on a high-speed rail network from 1966 to 1 ...
were appearing). Italian railways could boast fast trains like the ETR 200, but they were getting old and the
Pendolino Pendolino (from Italian ''pendolo'' "pendulum", and ''-ino,'' a diminutive suffix) is an Italian family of tilting trains used in Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the UK, the US ...
project was just in its early phases. The first 4 prototypes, built at
Savigliano Savigliano (Savijan in Piedmontese) is a ''comune'' of Piedmont, northern Italy, in the Province of Cuneo, about south of Turin by rail. It is home to ironworks, foundries, locomotive works (once owned by Fiat Ferroviaria, now by Alstom) and si ...
, made their debut in 1967-1968: their power output was respectable for the time, but they proved unable to hold the fast international services required for the new locomotive, and the bogies were limited to . They proved anyway that Italian industry could produce locomotive capable of more than A speed of was registered on November 8, 1967, in the maiden trip Rome-Milan. The series production saw the introduction of the more powerful T750 motors, which boosted the power to , while the bogies were upgraded for . The frontal part was improved and made more aerodynamic. A characteristic livery with two blue stripes on a pale grey background was adopted. The first 50 units proved successful, and the