Thello is in France considered a private train operator, but in practise it is a trade name of the Italian state
railways FS Trenitalia. It was initially a joint venture of Trenitalia and the Transdev group of France, but Transdev backed out of the
operation. Thello operates trains from France into Italy and their key offerings are Paris to Rome night trains and Paris to Venezia (Venice)
trains. In Italy the trains are pulled by Trenitalia's locomotives but in France they use locomotives rented from their arch rival SNCF.
This is an SNCF class BB36000 locomotive owned by SNCF's daughter company Akiem, which rents locomotives. Depending on the coaches, they
can run Thello's trains either 160 or 200 km/h to the Italian border. The BB36000, also known by the name Astride is an electric locomotive
built by Alstom 1996-2001 in 60 copies. It can operate with 3 kV DC, 15 kV AC or 25kV AC and it can also run in Luxembourg, Belgium and Italy.
Picture from Paris Gare de Lyon 19.10.2017 by Ilkka Siissalo.
