TrenItalia Frecciarossa: Standard Class

During our trip to Italy in September 2018, Audrey and I had the opportunity to ride on Trenitalia’s high-speed train, the Frecciarossa, from Rome’s Termini train terminal to the Santa Lucia train station in Venice.

The Train

Our train taking us from Rome to Venice was an ETR-1000. ETR stands for ElettroTreno Rapido, or Rapid Electric Train in English. The ETR-1000 just recently entered service in 2015 after Trenitalia was looking to upgrade its older fleet of ETR-500s. With a top tested speed of 400 km/h, the ETR-1000 is one of the fastest trains in the world.

Specs:

Number of cars: 8
Passenger capacity: 457 (10 executive, 69 business, 76 premium, 300 standard + 2 wheelchair)
Max speed: 300 km/h (operational), 400 km/h (design)
Cost per train: €30.8 million

The Frecciarossa, translated to “Red Arrow” in English, is unbelievably quiet and extremely smooth. The acceleration is so gentle that you would never know that you’re suddenly reaching close to 200 mph.

Our Trip

Our trip to Venice departed Rome at 5:35 AM. To ensure we didn’t miss the train we got there pretty early to give us ample time to find our platform. When we arrive around 5:00 AM, we found that our train was not assigned a platform yet. We were worried our train was delayed or even worse cancelled.

We spoke to one of the employees at the train station who informed us that platforms are typically assigned 15 minutes before departure. Surely enough at 5:20, our platform popped up on the departure screen.

Our trip to Venice was scheduled to take roughly three and a half hours so we decided to forgo business or executive class in favor of the more affordable standard class.

Our Seats

Standard fare seats are arranged in a 2-2 configuration on either side of the train. Seats are typically arranged “lounge style” with four seats facing each other with a table in the middle allowing for a larger work space than a typical fold down seat-back table on an airplane. This can get awkward as your legs frequently bump into those of the person sitting across from you.

This seating arrangement also keeps you from being able to recline your seat in any way which is admittedly kind of a bummer.

Each seat comes with a power outlet. Keep in mind these are European power outlets so you will probably need an outlet adapter to charge your devices.

Wi-Fi & Onboard Entertainment

Although Frecciarossa trains are advertised as having free on-board Wi-Fi, Audrey and I found it impossible to be able to connect to the internet on our phones. The main reason for this is the hoops you have to jump through to get online. For starters, you have to connect to the train’s Wi-Fi and from there you can access the FRECCE Portal, where you have to register an account before being allowed to access the internet.

You can ONLY create an account on the portal while being connected to the onboard Wi-Fi. After creating an account you will be prompted to verify your account via a code sent to you by text message. The problem here is that if you are trying to create an account through your phone, you will not be able to receive any text messages if you are connected to a Wi-Fi signal that isn’t connected to the internet. If you disconnect from the Wi-Fi to get a signal, your session will be terminated and you will have to start all over again.

This system was extremely frustrating and after tinkering with it on both of our phones for nearly an hour, we just gave up on it.

Although we couldn’t connect to the internet, the FRECCE Portal grants you access to free online news sites, movies, music, and TV shows.

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WARNING: If you have an Android smartphone like I do, you cannot gain access to the movies, music, or TV shows without having the Trenitalia app which, again, you cannot download without an internet connection so really unless you know all of this before hand, you’re screwed.

The movie and TV show selection is fairly limited and dated. This was immediately noticeable when I saw that the featured movie on the front page of the FRECCE Portal was Closed Circuit, a 2013 crime thriller starring Eric Bana.

Onboard Dining

If you had to picture what a dining car on a train would look like, you would probably think of a nice, sit-down restaurant on wheels patronized by well dressed people. Something akin to Murder on the Orient Express. On the Frecciarossa, the dining car is significantly more modest.

The dining car on the train is little more than a standing bar where you can order sandwiches, both hot and cold, chips, light snacks, and drinks. They also accept credit cards.

The food is decent but nothing to really write home about. I asked for my sandwich to be hot but the gentleman behind the counter left it in the sandwich press for such a short amount of time that it was still cold in the middle. To be fair, this was a problem I encountered throughout Italy.

Seeing such an impressive high speed rail system makes me wish there was something comparable here in the United States. Our trip from Rome to Venice took us 300 miles in a little over 3 and a half hours. A comparable trip in the United States would take an extra two hours.

The Frecciarossa is an incredible mode of transportation. Wildly convenient, fast, punctual, and comfortable, riding on a high speed train in Italy makes getting around the country a breeze.

Although still slower than a plane, when you take into account the time needed to get to the airport, check in and go through security, taking a high speed train is an overall time saver. The onboard entertainment leaves much to be desired, but if you can look past that or bring your own, it’s definitely the best way to get around the major Italian cities.

TrenItalia Frecciarossa: Standard Class

During our trip to Italy in September 2018, Audrey and I had the opportunity to ride on Trenitalia’s high-speed train, the Frecciarossa, from Rome’s Termini train terminal to the Santa Lucia train station in Venice.

The Train

Specs:

Number of cars: 8

Passenger capacity: 457 (10 executive, 69 business, 76 premium, 300 standard + 2 wheelchair)

Max speed: 300 km/h (operational), 400 km/h (design)

Cost per train: €30.8 million

The Frecciarossa, translated to “Red Arrow” in English, is unbelievably quiet and extremely smooth. The acceleration is so gentle that you would never know that you’re suddenly reaching close to 200 mph.

Our Trip

We spoke to one of the employees at the train station who informed us that platforms are typically assigned 15 minutes before departure. Surely enough at 5:20, our platform popped up on the departure screen.

Our trip to Venice was scheduled to take roughly three and a half hours so we decided to forgo business or executive class in favor of the more affordable standard class.

Our Seats

This seating arrangement also keeps you from being able to recline your seat in any way which is admittedly kind of a bummer.

Each seat comes with a power outlet. Keep in mind these are European power outlets so you will probably need an outlet adapter to charge your devices.

Wi-Fi & Onboard Entertainment

This system was extremely frustrating and after tinkering with it on both of our phones for nearly an hour, we just gave up on it.

Although we couldn’t connect to the internet, the FRECCE Portal grants you access to free online news sites, movies, music, and TV shows.

WARNING: If you have an Android smartphone like I do, you cannot gain access to the movies, music, or TV shows without having the Trenitalia app which, again, you cannot download without an internet connection so really unless you know all of this before hand, you’re screwed.

The movie and TV show selection is fairly limited and dated. This was immediately noticeable when I saw that the featured movie on the front page of the FRECCE Portal was Closed Circuit, a 2013 crime thriller starring Eric Bana.

Onboard Dining

If you had to picture what a dining car on a train would look like, you would probably think of a nice, sit-down restaurant on wheels patronized by well dressed people. Something akin to Murder on the Orient Express. On the Frecciarossa, the dining car is significantly more modest.

The dining car on the train is little more than a standing bar where you can order sandwiches, both hot and cold, chips, light snacks, and drinks. They also accept credit cards.

The food is decent but nothing to really write home about. I asked for my sandwich to be hot but the gentleman behind the counter left it in the sandwich press for such a short amount of time that it was still cold in the middle. To be fair, this was a problem I encountered throughout Italy.

Seeing such an impressive high speed rail system makes me wish there was something comparable here in the United States. Our trip from Rome to Venice took us 300 miles in a little over 3 and a half hours. A comparable trip in the United States would take an extra two hours.

The Frecciarossa is an incredible mode of transportation. Wildly convenient, fast, punctual, and comfortable, riding on a high speed train in Italy makes getting around the country a breeze.