Power cut at Termini due to a ‘nail’: RFI fined 1.75 million
The Transport Authority’s decision: in the autumn of 2024, a fault had brought rail services in Rome to a standstill
Almost 500 trains cancelled – including high-speed, Intercity and regional services – 70,000 minutes of delays, chaos at stations and disruption lasting until the evening, with thousands of tourists and commuters stranded on the platforms awaiting news. 2 October 2024 was a day to forget for rail transport: a fault in a power line during night-time works at the Rome railway hub had split Italia in two, causing enormous disruption to travellers. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport Matteo Salvini reported that technicians had attributed the fault to ‘a private contractor who drove a nail into a cable’.
Fine of 1.75 million
In July 2025, the Transport Authority had initiated penalty proceedings against RFI for that ‘extremely serious disruption to rail traffic’: the investigation concluded with a fine of 1.75 million being imposed on the company responsible for the management, maintenance and development of the national rail infrastructure.
According to the authority headed by Nicola Zaccheo, RFI ‘failed to take appropriate measures to ensure the operation and maintenance of the infrastructure, guaranteeing its accessibility and functionality’. The resolution explains that the maximum amount of the fine of 2 million euros was reduced by 250,000 euros, ‘in view of the actions taken following the breach’.
RFI’s defence: ‘No negligence’
For its part, RFI, when questioned by the Transport Authority, stated that ‘the incident in question can be classified solely as an infrastructure failure and, as such, was dealt with through a series of measures that enabled the infrastructure to be gradually restored to full operational capacity’.
Therefore, ‘it is incorrect to characterise the operator’s conduct as negligent; it is more accurate to characterise the incident as a mere fault – caused by an unforeseeable event – which was subsequently dealt with through measures that enabled the gradual restoration of the infrastructure, even though this failure occurred in a strategic part of the national infrastructure’.
