Trenitalia in HO c2015: Double Riva E656 Caimano- IC710 Taranto-Roma and IC747 Ventimiglia-Milano

Here is a little festival of the Trenitalia XMPR livery. Through the late 70s, 80s and 90s, FS was famous for having almost every item of rolling stock painted in a different colour scheme. However, from the early 2000s to the late 2010s, they managed a fairly consistent (though not necessarily popular!) grey, green and blue livery designed by the UK (sorry!) design company XMPR. And XMPR became its name. Currently, Trenitalia has returned to world of rainbow colours schemes and everything is different again.
Here are two trains from around 2015 (hauled by the fantastic looking triple bogie E656 locos) that might look the same, but they are not!
The train on the outer circuit represents the IC747 Ventimiglia to Milano. It is hauled by Rivarossi 2nd series E656 (single headlights, but later squared buffers and aluminium front window surrounds). The rake is based on this video here:    • INTERCITY 747 PER MILANO CENTRALE IN ...  
My consist includes unrefitted corridor coaches- 3x Lima UIC-Z second class cars, with a refitted ACME "Guibileo" 2000R UIC-X corridor hiding amongst them. These had power doors fitted, with some being repainted in UIC-Z style XMPR - rather than Mainlines- it is hard to tell they are UIC-X, not UIC-Z coaches in this scheme! Next comes a UIC-Z BH accessible open coach, then an ACME 1st series gran confort open coach. At the end of the consist is a UIC-Z 1st class coach repainted by me in XMPR colours.

On the inner circuit is a former Rivarossi E655.166 Cargo loco that I have adjusted to be like a 5th series E656. I made replacement nameplates and numbers (if you think the front number looks scruffy, Google the real thing!!). The front window frames were painted black to look like the rubber used on this series. Mine is now E656.427, which was still hauling passenger trains in Sicily until recently. It has separate red tail lights.
It is hauling a rake to represent IC710 Taranto-Roma (like this    • E656 018 per IC 710 Taranto-Bari Cent...  . The consist is completely formed of refitted progetto IC270 coaches (without the external digital displays)- well- actually, I needed to add two IC901 style coaches on the end to make up numbers. We have an ACME 1st series gran confort (1st cl), ACME 1st series gran confort BHR (ex-restaurant), 2x ACME UIC-Zs, Roco Eurofima (repainted by me- you can't get these!) and two IC901 ACME UIC-Zs at the rear (one ex-1st class).

Just a word on cracked gears- the Lima origin, triple bogie locos are notorious for getting cracked gears. This results in a terrible thumping or clicking noise, and sometimes cardan shafts being spat out. Rivarossi have tried (and failed) to fix this problem! I now just keep a stock of replacement gears. I thought these recent E656 had improved gears that solve the problem, but no.....after several years, 427 has an ominous random click and some the gears on 250 went loose on the axle. As I was in a hurry, 250 got a spare semi-knackered wheelset I had to hand. This is a bit thumpy and twitchy, but generally works for now!