Italo Holding orders Velaros
posted on 20th Jul 2026 13:24
On 20 July 2026, Siemens Mobility has signed a contract with Italian high-speed rail operator Italo Holding covering 26 eight-car Velaro MS high-speed trains with an option for 14 additional ones and a 30-year full-service agreement. The contract is worth around 3 billion EUR, the trains will be built at the Krefeld works.
These 320 km/h Velaros will be able to run at 1.5 and 3 kV DC as well as 15 and 25 kV AC. They will have approximately 440 seats and will feature Starlink antenna integration, providing high-speed satellite internet connectivity for passengers. The 30-year full-service agreement covers comprehensive maintenance at Siemens Mobility's own depot in Dortmund. Digital services, including the Railigent X platform and fleet monitoring, will support predictive maintenance and operational efficiency throughout the fleet's lifecycle.
Italo wants to operate on the München - Frankfurt (M) - Dortmund and München - Berlin - Hamburg routes, where it wants to offer up to 56 services dilay, and that already in 2028! However, there has been a huge discussion around the whole plan, because Italo requested for the train ordering the certainty of allocated routes, which is proving to be a major problem due to the limited capacity of the network, especially in large stations. Therefore, at the official level, among other things, it is being discussed whether DB InfraGO should give more priority to other operators when allocating routes, if DB Fernverkehr (as part of the same Deutsche Bahn group) has a 95 % market share in long-distance transport here.
