The Electric Rapid Train (ETR) “212” (Viper’s Head) is the protagonist of a historic feat, setting a record from Florence to Milan in 1 hour and 55 minutes, reaching a speed of 203.4 km/h. July 20, 1939, was thus the date that effectively marked the launch of high-speed rail in Italy and around the world. The program was unfortunately soon interrupted by the disaster of the Second World War, and then resumed with ups and downs, finally being officially inaugurated in Italy in 2009. That hot July day 80 years ago was a Thursday. From Florence’s Santa Maria Novella station, at 12:00 sharp, the electric train ETR 212, driven by Alessandro Cervellati, a train driver from the Bologna Locomotive Depot, departed on a special non-stop run to Milan Central Station. With that test, the Italian State Railways put on a show for the entire world, setting a series of records, including the 203.4 km/h reached near Pontenure on the Fidenza-Piacenza section of the Bologna-Milan line. But the real record for this electric train wasn’t the aforementioned top speed, surpassed just a month earlier by a German diesel train, but the average speed of 164 km/h over the entire route, which earned it the world record for commercial long-distance speed.
