“Allegro Project”. This is the name of the file on which the SNCF Voyageurs teams have been working for several months, according to The Parisian. The objective of this project would be to continue the international development of the French railway company, by importing the Ouigo low-cost train model to Italy on the Turin – Milan – Rome – Naples and Turin – Venice high-speed lines. .
A launch by 2026?
For now, the SNCF has already exported to Spain and offers a Paris-Milan link. No information on this possible development in Italy has been confirmed by the company. Internally, the Allegro project should however be presented on April 26 by management to the European Works Council (EEC), the SNCF body responsible for defining the strategy for international development.
In detail, according to information from the Parisian, the SNCF would plan to set up 13.5 daily round trips to Italy, including “nine Milan – Rome round trips and four Turin – Venice round trips”. The launch should gradually take place “between June 2026 and March 2028”, according to a management document.
Compete with Trenitalia
This project appears as a response to the arrival of Trenitalia, the equivalent of the SNCF in Italy, on the Paris – Lyon line at the end of 2021. By taking up its Ouigo model, the SNCF seeks to offer “something popular that does not does not exist to appeal to leisure travellers”. Already, the development of Ouigo in Spain, in Madrid – Barcelona, has enabled the SNCF to grab some market share.
To achieve this development in Italy, the company will notably be able to count on its subsidiary SNCF Voyages Italia (SVI), which already manages Paris – Milan. It therefore already has the authorizations to put trains on Italian lines. But the SNCF would not yet have “rolling stock suitable for circulation on Italian routes”. A need that should be met by the 15 TGV M trains called “Corridor Sud”, ordered from Alstom in July 2022, and which should be delivered between April 2026 and March 2028.
