Italy train

No, they are different train companies, although they run on the same tracks. Trenitalia is larger, gong to more places, and also runs the Regionale trains. Italo runs only high speed trains between selected cities, and usually has fewer trains or day. But book with whichever company has the best price and departure time to suit you.

I don't think so. We ordered tickets by using Rail Europe and received tickets on two trains, one was run by Trenitalia and the other by Italoreno. The tickets included seat reservations.

TrenItalia is the official rail service throughout Italy. ItaloTreno is a private company using the same rails. Either one is fine to use.

No stupid questions! We all start somewhere, figuring out the Italian trains. Quick answer: There are two national companies that run high speed trains in Italy. I strongly prefer booking my tickets directly with one of these two companies, rather than with a 2nd party. Trenitalia.com is the big company, that runs all over Italy. Their "high speed" trains will be described as "freccia[some color]". Italotreno.com runs only to a few major cities, and (I believe) that all of their trains are high speed. Here is a link to a very recent discussion about these companies, and booking tickets:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/high-speed-trains-45503125-1d17-4fdc-9006-c8fd85e290f1

• Trenitalia ( https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html ) is the national rail company, running 90% of both local and long distance trains
• Italo ( https://www.italotreno.it/en ) is a company competing on some (only some) high speed routes.
• There are also some local companies running commuter services, for example Circumvesuviana near Naples, and Trenord near Milan.

Anybody else you see on the Internet is a ticket reseller or a travel agent.

Book direct with whoever is running the trains, or https://www.italiarail.com/ which covers both Trenitalia and Italo.

To add to my previous post ( and having re read the OPs question) ItaliaRail is NOT a train company. They are a ticket agency (which may charge additional fees). Better to buy directly from the train company or from a different agency like loco2 or RailEurope.

As Virginia said, Trenitalia and Italo are rail operations: they both manage train lines and sell tickets for them. ItaliaRail is just a 3rd-party ticket seller.

Many of us are in favor of using the websites of the rail operators themselves as should there be a problem, those can be messier to sort via a third party. Others have 3rd-party booking favorites they prefer to use as they feel personally that they're easier to navigate.

Hello Kathy,

I think it's a valid question.

https://www.trenitalia.com/ Official site

https://www.italiarail.com/ Is a train ticket-seller

https://www.italotreno.it/en Is a private company with high-speed trains and has limited schedules *

*Updated for correction

Thank you all so much.

But I do believe Italo does go to Termini.

Kathy, I deleted the incorrect info. - post is updated

Yes, most of Italo's trains to Rome now go to Termini. When they first started, you had to go to Ostiense to catch an Italo train but those days are long gone.