Società Italiana Ernesto Breda (), more usually referred to simply as Breda, was an Italian mechanical manufacturing company founded by Ernesto Breda in Milan in 1886.
History
The firm was founded by Ernesto Breda in Milan in 1886. It originally manufactured locomotives and other railway machinery, but later branched out into armaments and aircraft. Occasionally, not continuously, the company also built trolleybuses. In 1935, it acquired the railway division of Officine Ferroviarie Meridionali and, soon afterwards, the aircraft division of the same company.
Breda-designed machine guns such as the Breda Model 30 and Breda Model 37 were standard issue weapons for the Royal Italian Army during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, the Italian Invasion of Albania and World War 2. At the peak of its wartime production, the company had 26,000 employees. By 1954, its workforce had been reduced to around 8,000.
In 1962, Breda was nationalised as part of EFIM, but was liquidated in the 1990s. The train and tram manufacturing division fused with Ansaldo to form AnsaldoBreda, the armaments division became an independent entity as Breda Meccanica Bresciana, as did the research division as Istituto Scientifico Breda.
Products
Aircraft Products
A.2
A.4
A.7
A.8
A.9
A.10
A.14
Ba.15
Ba.19
CC.20
Ba.25
Ba.26
Ba.27
Ba.28
Ba.32
Ba.33
Ba.39
Ba.42
Ba.44
Ba.46
Ba.64
Ba.65
Ba.75
Ba.79S
Ba.82
Ba.88
Ba.92
Ba.201
Ba.205
BP.471
BZ.308
BZ.309
Tebaldi-Zari
Rolling stock products
Locomotives
South African Class 15CA 4-8-2
SEK class Μα
E.330
D.341
D.345
D.443
E.424
E.428
E.636
HŽ series 1061
DMU and EMU
ETR 200
ETR 240
ETR 300
FNM Class E.750
Metro
Washington Metro 2000-Series, 3000-Series, 4000-series
Breda A650
Tram and light rail
ATM Class 1500
ATM Class 4600 and 4700
LRVs for RTA Rapid Transit (Cleveland) MBTA Green Line Type 8 (production continued after merger) LRV2 and LRV3 for Muni Metro (San Francisco)
Trolleybuses
The production of trolleybuses was a small part of Breda's output, carried out through its subsidiary Breda Costruzioni Ferroviarie (it), and was not under way continuously. Between 1936 and 1940, the company built a total of 28 trolleybuses, most for the Rome system but including six for Genoa. At various times between 1938 and 1956, more trolleybuses were built, but totalling only 16. Production resumed in 1988. Almost all of Breda's customers for trolleybuses were Italian trolleybus systems, but a notable exception was an order of 236 dual-mode buses that Breda built for the Seattle system between 1988 and 1991.
See also
Leonardo
AnsaldoBreda
IMAM
References
Further reading
Luigi Giugni, Le imprese a partecipazione statale, Naples, Jovene, 1972
Pasquale Saraceno, Il sistema delle imprese a partecipazione statale nell'esperienza italiana, Milano, Giuffrè, 1975 Bruno Amoroso - Ole Jess Olsen, Lo stato imprenditore, Bari, Laterza, 1978 Nico Perrone, Il dissesto programmato. Le partecipazioni statali nel sistema di consenso democristiano, Bari, Dedalo, 1991 Nico Perrone, Italian and American Patterns in a Conflictive Development, Roskilde, Roskilde Universitetscenter, 1992 La Breda produce, mostra fotografica, dal sito dell’Istituto per la Storia dell’Età Contemporanea La linea del fuoco