Trenitalia Bingo

I've spent some time in Rome lately and specifically in Termini station, which is one of the biggest in Europe. Naturally, it is full of trains and I started to notice some patterns. I took some pictures because I generally find trains interesting and that somehow derailled into me trying to take a picture with every Italian train I could!

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about, none of this is fact checked.

The four horsemen of Trenitalia

All this really started because the train I take the most often is the Jazz. I find that name pretty charming and fun! So I took a picture with it:

If you're in Italy, I suspect you either take the Jazz the most often or the Vivalto, which I have a picture with here:

Going with the NS correspondence as before, the Vivalto is like the Dutch Intercity: It has two floors, so it seems to be for longer distances.

The game really began when I noticed two other trains: the Pop and the Rock. These seemed like newer trains, which I think really fits the naming. Jazz is "old school" and Vivalto reminds you of Vivaldi which is older still. Meanwhile, Rock and Pop are modern genres. I think that's neat. Concretely, Pop is the new Jazz and Rock is the new Vivalto. Honestly I dislike that Vivalto is not actually a music genre, because the phrase "Pop is the new Jazz" goes hard af.

They're also rarer. I didn't see many and at first I didn't have everything as clearly figured out so I tried taking pictures with the new ones. I did manage to get up close with a Pop:

But the Rock seems rarer still! I took a picture from afar at first thinking I would get a better one, but I didn't manage to, so this is the only one I have 🤠

Intermission: Long distance trains

I didn't do any long distance train trips (yet!) but I quickly tried to take pictures with them, so here they are:

The Leonardo Express

The best branding out of any train I've seen so far might be the Leonardo Express. This train takes you to Fiumicino airport in about 30 minutes for 14€ whereas the regular train is 45 minutes for 8€ (and buses generally 50 minutes for about 7.5€). However, it's just a repainted Jazz. I found a Jazz and a Leonardo express side by side and it's fun to see how they're the exact same but with a different coat of paint.

The last day and the elusive train

It just so happened that my last day in Rome I had a wait of a bit more than 30 minutes on Termini station. Since at this point trenitalia bingo was on full swing, I decided to try to complete it for good. This is when I took all these pictures with the long distance trains! But there was one weird train...

In my second to last stint in Termini, I saw this from still inside my usual Jazz:

This was a train I had never seen before. It left before I could go and see it, and I thought I would never see it again, as I only saw it once in a few days and I would be leaving soon. Even in my last day, after a long time none of these green trains where on sight.

And then... I found it.

This was very unexpected because I was about to leave! I'm still not sure what this is. I liked my Jazz/Vivalto/Pop/Rock matrix, and I have no idea how this one relates to them. I thought it would be like electric with all renewable energy or something, but I didn't find much evidence on that anywhere except of it being green. Maybe they like the color. I do like the color, but I don't like the name and even the branding in general.

And in the end, even with my last train-visiting marathon, I didn't find see a single Rock up close. Turns out the Rock is the elusive train after all.

Epilogue

I thought I would fact check all of my theories, but I realized that it might be more fun to let my theories live in peace :)

(also my preliminary research had not that much info show up)

Have fun training!