Mercitalia Fast was a pilot project launched in Italy for high-speed rail freight services. However, the experiment was quite unsuccessful and now the adapted wagons will be scrapped, putting the final tombstone on the initiative.
The Mercitalia Fast train ran for four years between 2018 and 2022. A high-speed train, usually deployed for passenger services, was modified to enable freight transport. This was the first attempt at high-speed rail freight in Europe, with Amazon being the sole customer.
After the service was discontinued, Mercitalia and its mother company Ferrovie dello Stato never excluded a possible return. The scraping of the modified wagons, however, now seems to underline how the service is gone for good.
The service connected the Maddaloni terminal, not far from Naples, to the Bologna Interporto intermodal hub. Already in its initial stages, industry players were critical of such an initiative, especially considering the presence of only one customer for it, despite being a big one such as Amazon.
High-speed rail freight: is it possible?
Finding ways to increase the speed of freight trains is somewhat of a key issue not only in Europe. In Russia, for example, trains are now running at lower speeds than in the 1960s, and competitive transit times between Europe and Asia are key to further develop rail freight services on this axis.
On the other hand, the Mercitalia Fast experiment in Italy seems to show that high-speed rail freight might not necessarily be the way to go, at least not yet. Running heavy trains at high speeds is not an easy feat, especially if it would concern trains crossing borders, where different (usually old) infrastructure would not allow for such services.