FS E402P Locomotive Pack

FS E402P Locomotive Pack

I present my second mod for Transport Fever 2, this time it’s up to the prototype group E402, hope you like it!

In the 1980s, before the imminent opening of the direct Florence-Rome, the only means of exit that could arrive, the set of services that are arriving at the maximum speed of 200 km / h E.444 cars, had been built at the” beginning of the seventies with an outdated technology that, above all, we’re able to travel for long distances at a maximum speed of 180 km/h and only for short distances.

Between 1981 and 1983 the technicians of the then Material and Traction Service of Florence elaborated the design of a locomotive for fast trains to be placed side by side with the E.444. The project was set up according to the philosophy of the time on a universal locomotive, that is capable of towing passenger trains set at 200 km / h and freight trains at 100 km / h, with four driving axles.

The new E.402 group was thus defined, detached from the classification system adopted up to then by the FS, with the following characteristics: Bo ‘Bo’ running gear, three-phase asynchronous traction motors, maximum speed of 220 km / h, drive consisting of two electronic converters (one for each trolley) with automatic control, rheostatic, recovery and mixed electric braking.

Being a revolutionary vehicle for the time, the FS decided that before moving on to the production of series locomotives it was prudent to make a provisional rolling stock to be able to carry out the first rough checks on the bogies, transmission and traction converters, and five rolling stock. Pre-series to test the solutions to be applied on the final machines. On 29 October 1982 a simulacrum, classified E.402.000, of the future locomotive, was ordered to Officine Reggiane and Ansaldo to carry out the first tests. Delivered on 25 March 1985, it carried out several test runs on the Rome-Florence (Direttissima and slow), Florence-Pisa, and Verona-Brenner lines.

At the same time, the FS ordered from the same company 5 pre-series specimens, classified E.402.001-005, which were delivered between May 31 and December 29, 1988, and assigned to the Locomotive Depot in Florence. Immediately put into service in shifts, initially aided by a “hen” locomotive with double traction at the head of the trains, already in the first months of operation the electronic part needed several fine-tuning to improve its reliability, while the mechanical part was excellent from the very beginning.

At the end of the experiments, in 1998 the five pre-series locomotives were temporarily set aside at the Officina Grandi Riparazioni in Foligno where the electrical components were updated and then put back into operation starting from January 1999, except for E.402.001 which was started to demolition.

Nowadays, there is only one prototype left, the 005, saved by Fondazione FS, while the 003 was demolished in October 2020, remaining in fact only a prototype.

FS E402 Prototype Pack Electric Locomotive
Power 6000kw
Tractive effort from 250 to 280kN
Max speed 220km/h
Year from 1982 (E402.000), 1988 (E402.001/005)