) railway Station in 1950 Shunning the bigger companies like Fiat and
Breda, FS ordered three prototypes of the new units to an experienced but smaller producer of parts and components based in
Milan,
Officine Meccaniche di Milano (OM). The contract was quite challenging for OM, who until then had never managed to build a new line of rolling stock as the main contractor; that was the well-guarded fief of the two giants of the Italian heavy industry. The prototypes, built around the
Fiat ALn 72 chassis, were delivered in 1937 and designated with the non-standard codes
ALn 72 3001-3003. After the initial tests showed results far above expectations, FS awarded OM a contract for about 200 units. The effort was too big to be dealt with by the outfitter alone, and Fiat was chosen as a partner to build the chassis and the car mechanics. The electrical and technical parts were to be built internally by OM. To make accounting easier, the contract was formally split between the two builders. The cars were divided
pro-forma into three series: the first was a single lot of 100 units to be delivered by Fiat, with numbers from 1001 to 1100; the remaining 96 units were to be delivered by OM in two series, the first lot being numbered from 3201 to 3250 and the second one from 3251 to 3296. The first series unit was delivered by Fiat in May 1940. After a testing session along the
Faentina railway line in
Tuscany, the 772.1001 car was certified as compliant to FS specifications and brought into service; the first OM-built unit was delivered in November of the same year. Building of the first 196 units continued at a regular pace up to 1943. In 1939 the local railways
Ferrovie Padane bought the three prototype cars from FS and two years later ordered from OM two additional units (
FP ALn 72 1004-1005). Those units were equipped with a different transmission gearing, which slowed them to a maximum speed of 100 km/h while providing the cars with of additional power. The outbreak of
World War II reduced dramatically the request for passenger transport during the following years, except for large army convoys which were unsuited to the small
Littorine; both Breda and OM converted their production to war effort. The ALn 772 diesel engines were brand-new, powerful and compact, so they were mostly
cannibalized to equip the
Italian Navy's
MAS torpedo boats. Fuel shortages and heavy bombing along the railroads made the remaining units useless for several years. OM could resume production only in 1948, thanks to the economic relief provided by the
Marshall Plan and the huge efforts into bringing back the mangled national rail network to its pre-war standards. From 1948 to 1957 OM delivered 123 more units (two series, 3301-3341 and 3342-3423), demonstrating a slow but steady recovery of its factories from the devastation caused by the war. Existing pre-war units were almost spared by the conflict, but were not untouched. Five units had to be scrapped, a couple of them without ever entering service, while 27 more were too badly damaged to be recovered and were dismantled to use as spare parts. In 1949 the SIF company, manager of the
private railway Siena-Buonconvento-Monte Antico, ordered two additional cars to OM; unlike the FS units, which had a 4-number code, these were originally numbered 101 and 102. The units were refit to carry 16 first-class and 56 second-class seats, while the third unit (marked as
Ln86.106) was modified for third-class service with 86 seats and no engine. Later on, with SIF's acquisition by FS in 1956, the three units were brought back to standard codes: the powered units were renumbered as ALn 772 3297–3298, and the powerless car was refitted with engines and transformed in ALn 772.3299. After the war the most "noble" rolling stock (mainly
ETR200s) was terribly damaged: the ALn 772 units had to be used to provide rapid service in the whole Italian peninsula, especially on the high-profile services of
Milan-
Venice-
Trieste;
Palermo-
Messina;
Taranto-
Bari and
Ancona;
Cagliari-
Olbia, and later on in
Sicily. The huge number of available ALn 772 cars in post-war Italy led to their use even on less important services and secondary lines. Some of them were even used on "emergency recover", a quite unusual duty for a fast passenger vehicle. During the 1950s, the ALn 772 were the true backbone of Italy's fast passenger fleet. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the series were not limited to the FS fleet, or to Italy alone: in 1949 three more special units were delivered to the
Polish railways
PKP, to be replicated and to serve on fast routes. In Italy, the former Ferrovie Padane units were re-branded as ALn 772 in 1961 and assigned to charter trains; one of them is still in service as of late 2006. The ALn 772.1009 unit, refitted with a first-class lounge, was brought back to its original fitting in 1970. The 772 series only begun to become obsolete in the 1970s, while being replaced by the new
ALn 773 and
ALn 668 introduced specifically for fast and short-range services. At the same time, the age of the 772 stock and their extremely intense use had made breakdowns more and more frequent, particularly on the hydrodynamic circuit and the exhaust systems. Moreover, the
asbestos coating was beginning to wear down and was not compliant with the stricter
health safety regulations concerning its use. In 1981 the routine maintenance was suspended, and the group was scheduled to be dismissed in a very short time frame. Only two units (3247 and 3326) were kept in active service on the
Novara-
Varallo Sesia line: on April 12, 1986, the railway administration issued a service order relegating all remaining units to the shed. The units were then decommissioned and after lying abandoned for some time, were scrapped in an extremely short timespan. Only five of them survived this fate (see
Preserved units below). ==Technical details==