Rail transport in Italy high-speed train was the Italian ETR 200, which in July 1939 went from Milan to Florence at , with a top speed of . With this service, the railway was able to compete with the upcoming airplanes. The Second World War stopped these services. After the Second World War, Italy started to repair the damaged railways, and built nearly of new tracks. Nowadays the rail tracks and infrastructure are managed by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), while the train and the passenger section is managed mostly by Trenitalia. Both are Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) subsidiaries, once the only train operator in
Fiat Ferroviaria for trains and was the first (and the only one for several decades) to produce active tilting trains with the trademark of Pendolino. In Italy several classes of Pendolinos were adopted starting from 1976 (ETR 401, ETR 450, ETR 460-65, ETR 480-85 and the Alstom made ETR600. Following the success of the ETR 450 series introduced in Italy in 1988 (the 401 series introduced in 1976 consisted of only 2 trainsets and never operated regular commercial service, working more like an "on-wheel laboratory"), tilting systems including bogies, traction, electric and electronic equipment were ordered by several countries: In 2001 also