PERCHE' FF.SS. ?

[martin67]

WHY FF.SS. ?
Hello,

why did Lima call FS Italia in their catalogues FF.SS? In one of the old Conti catalogues FF.SS was used, too.

Anybody knows?

Have a nice day,

Martin

[FNM600]

Dear Martin,

Well here it is a question a of Italian grammar and since I am only an engineer, I leave it to an Italian with a BA rather BSc to answer you.
Model railway manufacturers tend to make models of trains and espescially in the past were a bit sloppy espescially regarding toy productions.
As you know Italy, is unusual amongst railway nations in NOT mentioning the country in the initial of their national system.

Where do you come from (you can mention you nearest local station as I am doing)?

E' una questione di grammatica Italiana e siccome sono solo un'ingegnere, lascio ad un'Italiano di formazione umanistica piuttosto che ingegneristica a rispondere.
I fabbricanti tendono a fare modelli e soprattutto nel passato tendevano ad essere approssimativi soprattutto nelle produzioni giocattolesche.
Come sà, l'Italia è strana tra le nazioni in NON indicare il paese nelle iniziali della sua rete nazionale.
Da dove viene (può menzionare la stazione locale come faccio io)?

[martin67]

Hello,

I live 30km north of Munich (Monaco di Baviera). Well, to me your national Railway is known as FS Italia, which mentions the country, only the logo doesn't. But in pre UIC epoch III a full "FS Italia" was written on the trains, right?

The FF.SS seems to be some sort of official:



I really wonder why and what it means.

Martin

[FNM600]

Gut, ich hoffe zu erzahlen gut /Good, I am hoping to explain / Spero di spiegare bene.

I recognized the photo from the link about part of uncle's Benito (Mussolini)s grandiose masterpiece fit for the 2nd city of the Roman Empire !!! Milano Centrale ! Built in 1931 anno IX EF (Era Fascista!) Such EF dates from 1922 (march on Roma) are still present in more hidden places that escaped post-war purges! I remember these dates on some locomotive's builders plates such as E.428, E.626 and the 1st 108 E.636 !

FF SS actually stands for Ferrovie Statali (State Railways) with state as adjective.
In abbreviations, if the word is a plural it is sometimes practice to repeat the initial letter to remind of the plural !
It was common at the time together with the winged wheel! Say before the arrival of the FS surrounded by a DB stile cornice which appeared with the slate grey (grigio ardesia) and DB stile UIC-X coaches. The SNCF stile pointed logo came later!
Before EF the simple FS was in use.

However there is FS too which is Ferrovie dello Stato (Railways of the State) with state as noun where often articles and prepositions are omitted from the initials or written in small case unlike the initials of main words, I have very rarely seen the latter in the case of FS.
It is pronounced Effe Esse, the names of the letters in Italian and, as you know, ALL letters in It. are pronounced without silent vowels. Here the Es are pronounced more or less as in Ma"rklin in Deutsch or red in English !

The name of the company is only FS and this is how it is referred by everyone in Italy in Italian. FS was founded in 1905. It is the major Italian company like DB in Deutschland and SNCF in France but there were and are other minor local companies too such as FNM Ferrovie Nord Milano and SV Società Veneta just to mention ones that appeared on Lima and Rivarossi wagons.
I am not to complicate with recent events such open access, separation of infrastructure, ecc. common to the whole of Europe to various degrees.

Italia was added only on wagons before the days of UIC 12 digits where 83 replaced Italia I think in order to aid foreign railwaymen in far away lands!

I hope I haven't been too boring ! Ich hoffe dass I nichts zu langweilig habe sein!
Although it is an It. site it seems to attract interest from abroad. Nice!

You can Google to find where I live. There is also Albate Camerlata FS electrified in XVII EF as it appears on the old abandoned signal box. We don't live very far but there are the Alps.

[Talgo49]

Hello Martin,

We met, with Giorgio, Luciano and other friends, in Verona. Your question is correct but, don't worry, the "FF SS" is not a logo of the Italian National Railways but it is only a way, allowed by the italian grammar, to write the plural form of some abbreviations, typically for public institutions. For instance in italian the fire brigade is called "Vigili del Fuoco" (something like "Policemen of Fire") where the word "Vigili" is the plural of "Vigile" (policeman). If I want to abbreviate the name "Vigili del Fuoco" as an institution I will write VVFF, where the double initlials indicate the plural form.
In other words, if I write "FFSS" I simply indicate the institution of the "Ferrovie (plural) dello Stato" but this has nothing to do with the official logo of our national railways.
I hope I was clear enough...

Gianni

[Tricx]

Un altro esempio è l'Arma dei Carabinieri, in abbreviazione denominati CC (maiuscolo).
a tutti.

[Dario Romani]

ARGOMENTO SPOSTATO DA LIMA TRIBUTE A DISCUSSIONI DI VARIO GENERE, IN QUANTO DI INTERESSE GENERALE.

Comunque, citava il Briano nella Sua Storia delle Ferrovie in Italia, le FS avevano scritto più volte delle circolari dove si raccomandava l'uso della sigla corretta "ufficiale" FS e non FFSS o FF.SS. o F.S. o peggio FFS che sta per Ferrovie Federali Svizzere.
E neanche FSI, aggiungo io, che sta per Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, che ò un "nome da battaglia" e una trovata pubblicitaria, a ricordo di FS ITALIA.
Una volta i carri erano marcati così (FS ITALIA) per far riconoscere ai ferrovieri all'estero la loro provenienza, nel caso non associassero le sole lettere FS all' Italia, e non le confondessero con F5, che era la marcatura presente sui carri e carrozze francesi di una determinata regione (al riguardo si consigliano dosi massicce della medicina VOLTAN ).

[martin67]

Thanks all, it helped me a lot! Nice idea to use double-character to point out plural!

Have a nice evening,

Martin

[kokomo]

Sorry being late on this subject, but in Spanish it is also frequent to use double letters in order to indicate multiplicity.

For instance:

FFAA was the official acronym for the late state owned railway company Ferrocarriles Argentinos (Argentine Railways)



Hope it helped!!!