I'm going to the Florence, Italy DO next month. My flights are to/from Rome.

I have the web site for Tranitalia, and am ready to make reservations. I'm not sure how much time I should allow.

My plane lands in Rome Friday, May 6 10:20AM. How long will it take me to clear customs, immigration, and get to the train station? I plan to just have carryon, no checked bags. I was thinking about booking the 12:30PM express to Florence. What happens if my plane is late or I'm delayed and I miss my train? Will they just put me on the next train? What happens if I can catch an earlier train? Can I go standby on earlier train?

My plane departs Rome Monday, May 9 1:20PM. How long should I allow in FCO to get from train station, for ticketing (not sure if NW allows OLCI from Rome), security? I was thinking a train that would get me there about 10:30AM, since I'm one of those folks who likes to allow PLENTY of time. Are their trains pretty much on schedule? I know this is Italy, not Germany, but any info would help.

You really need an answer for that?

I can't answer your first question but I will tell you that it takes more than 30 minutes to get between FCO and the train station in Rome and the trains that take you there run about every 30 minutes (at least, they did a couple of years ago). Given the possibility of airline delay, a customs delay and then waiting 30 minutes for the train to town, your arrival connection seems tight. If it were me, I would plan a night in Rome on both ends. If you don't want to do that, I'd plan at least a four hour buffer on the arrival. On the return, I would allow another four hours between scheduled arrival in the Rome train station and the departure of your flight. You might spend some time sitting around waiting for trains and planes, but this way, you are covered in the event of a minor train or plane delay.

I think every train I took in Italy was delayed at least a little bit.
There's also the possibility of a sciopero - strike.
rjque's advice is good - allow plenty of time. I would also have a backup plan if there does happen to be a strike (and spending the night in Rome on each end allows for that).

OK, I see that I was overly optimistic in the amount of time that I originally expected to allow.

What about my question about different train if my flight is delayed, or earlier train if I actually get to the Rome train station early?

Does anyone have recommendation for first class vs. second class? Is 1st worth the extra �?

We took the train from Venice to Rome a couple of years ago, which stopped in Florence and then on to Rome. I don't think we paid for first class. Second class was just fine, decent seats, easy ride for 3 or so hours, there is a bar compartment with drinks and basic snacks, they come around with a trolley to sell cofee, drinks etc. The train was basically on time, give or take a few minutes.

We have done about 20-30 trains in Italy, mostly on the BLQ-VCE route. The only one that was late was the day everything was very late due to snow in the mountains between FLR and BLQ.

We traveled exclusively on ES in first, until the snow delay. We were stuck on an IC. First class tickets were about 25% the ES tickets. The train took about 10 minutes longer(in close to 2 hours) BLQ-VCE. First class was virtually empty, and the seating much better than the ACLEA in the DC-NYC route. Not much food.

We now travel IC First, and pack our own food and lunch.

Any info? Is it NECESSARY to have a prepaid reservation? What if I'm delayed & can't make original train, or able to make an earlier train?

I do not recall paying for a reservation. I know I have had ES first class tickets with no reservation, because we got on the train with no reservation, and the ticket taker grumped at us. I do not know if you can make two reservations on a single ticket. The IC has no reservations.

If the ES is sold out, you cannot get a ticket.

Actually, every train I've even taken in Italy has been ontime and clean. Every train I've even taken in Germany has been late and dirty. Go figure. The worst example was the "high speed" DB train for Frankfurt to Amsterdam that began its journey in a very jaunty spurt of stopping and starting before even reaching its first stop, then spent about 90 minutes putting around parts of Koln that I don't really ever want to see again. Final arrival was over 2 hours late. No announcements, no apology, no reason given, just late.

Now, the online booking sites.

Trenitalia is a wonderment of problems, bad links, sometimes working, sometimes not.

The DB site, on the other hand, gives you instructions for 7 (yes, SEVEN) ways to book your tickets.

From what I understand (we are going in May) you can just walk up in the train station and buy a ticket. That said, like Slawecki said, if it's sold out it's sold out. What is more important? To have flexibility or to have peace of mind. Life is a trade

And then I just saw this in another forum...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=300945

everything you wanted to know about train travel.

The express (non-stop) trains from Rome Main Station (Roma Termini) to FCO, taking 31 minutes, are first-class only. The local trains from Roma Tiburtina, Roma Ostiense, etc. (42 minutes from Tiburtina, not stopping at Termini) are second-class only.

Maybe of note, if you travel with camcorders/digital cameras - some of the ES trains in 1.class have power ports seat-side. Unfortunately I don't know specifically which seats these are.

One thing that reservations are good for is securing seats in the Nonsmoking cars.

I've seen instances where Trenitalia shuts down for maintenance but they don't indicate that on their website!!! So using the site is a crapshoot but I did manage to get my train tickets thru Trenitalia.