Thello

Trenitalia France is an open-access train operator running international services between France and Italy. It was originally established under the Thello brand in October 2011.

On 11 December 2011, Thello ran its first night service, having rapidly come into operation to take advantage of a vacant niche opened by the withdrawal of the Artesia cross-border service only one month prior. The operator was initially structured as a joint venture, its ownership being divided between the Italian state-owned train operator Trenitalia and the French conglomerate Veolia Transdev. During June 2016, Transdev sold their share in the venture to Trenitalia. Within its early years of operations, Thello sought to expand onto other routes, including to direct compete with Thalys on the Paris-Brussels cross-border service. On 21 March 2018, the company announced that it was taking steps to establish its own high speed services between France and Italy in the coming years.

Thello services were heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, being heavily curtailed in March of that year. During the following year, it was decided to permanently terminate all operations on 1 July 2021. The move marked the retirement of the Thello brand. During October 2021, it was announced that cross-border services between France and Italy would be restarted in the coming months; the same announcement revealed that the ''Trenitalia France'' brand would be used instead. On 18 December 2021, a high-speed train service was launched between Paris and Milan; in contrast to the slower rolling stock used by the prior Thello service, Frecciarossa 1000 trainsets have been operated instead.

History

In November 2011, operations of the Artesia cross-border service, which ran trains between Paris and several Italian destinations, was permanently terminated after the French national railway operator SNCF decided to withdraw its involvement in the venture. Even prior to its discontinuation, Trenitalia and Veolia Transport (later Transdev) had announced their plans to jointly operate a new train operator, branded ''Thello'', that would run day and night international services between the two countries.

From 11 December 2011, night trains run by Thello operated daily on the route between Paris Gare de Lyon, Dijon-Ville, Milano Centrale, and Venezia Santa Lucia. Cabotage, the carriage of domestic passengers on a leg of the international journey, was not permitted, and tickets between Paris and Dijon were not offered by Thello.

In December 2012, Thello took over services between Paris, Firenze Santa Maria Novella, and Roma Termini, which had previously been operated by Artesia. However, on 14 December 2013, the service was withdrawn after only a single year of operation. The specific reason given was difficulties in obtaining timetable routes with attractive travel times on the route; specifically, Albert Alday, Thello's CEO, observed that the closure of the St Maurice tunnel had made it impossible to secure train paths for a large portion of 2014. An additional factor was Trenitalia offer of improved connections via its high-speed services to reduce journey times between the two capitals.

During 2013, the company acquired the safety certificate required for traffic on the Belgian railway network. Thello had announced that they wanted to operate in direct competition with Thalys on the Paris-Brussels route; however, no such services would ever materialise. Following the granting of permission by regulatory authorities that same year, Thello operated daytime trains between Milan and Marseille, via Genoa and Nice

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