Their introduction also saw the employment of some revolutionary (for the time) design concepts, such as the articulated carbody and the three bogies scheme.

The E.636 was designed to overcome the problems shown in the 1930s by both the E.626 multi-purpose and E.326 high-speed locomotives, in order to better handle the increasing railway traffic in Italy.

The E.636 was the first Italian locomotive adopting the Bo-Bo-Bo configuration with chassis divided into two articulated parts pivoting on the central bogie, which is very well suited for the often tortuous lines of Italy and that would have been later repeated on the E.645/646 and E.656 classes.

The presence of a great number of wheels was considered important due to the presence of a number of high-slope lines in the Italian railroad network as it increases the adhesion limit, meaning that the locomotive is less prone to wheel slips.

The 32R used a 3 kV catenary but this was soon shown to be inadequate and so were updated and provided with a new hollow axle transmission system.

As most older Italian locomotives, E.636 has a rheostat (formed by 16 cast iron resistors connected in series, for a total resistance of 29 ohms) that needs to be gradually, but as soon as possible, excluded on start-ups, which regulates the current to the six 32R-200 DC traction motors, two per bogie.

This means that on start the current would be very high, because the only resistance encountered would be only the one offered by motors and internal conductors, which is very low (a short circuit, in practice).

It is also important to remove the shunts before making a transition, in order to avoid flashes due to abnormally high currents.

The optimal moment to pass to the following/preceding combination first/last notches is when the motor ammeter indicates 0 Ampères, which happens when passing over the transition position with the lever (the driver should briefly stop in the middle of the block and pay attention to the ammeter), meaning that the motor contactors are in optimal position and is safe to proceed.

Air production on the locomotive was granted by two C38 type compressors; later they were upgraded with the more reliable W242, however, on some units, only one compressor was replaced, leaving one of each type in use on a single locomotive; the C38 produced air until 8 bar (800 kPa; 120 psi) in main reservoir tanks were reached, while the W242 from 8 to 9 bar (800 to 900 kPa; 120 to 130 psi).

To brake the train the driver, by moving the brake controller, creates a depression in a particular tank called "bariletto", which, through a series of coils creates a connection to the exterior which makes the general pipe to gradually lower its pressure to a value equal to the one present in the aforementioned tank (how fast this happens depends on train length: the longer it is, the slower this procedure will be).

Inside the distributore the command reservoir pressure "wins" over now lower pipe pressure and thus the piston moves, creating a connection between the braking cylinders and the auxiliary reservoir (fed by the main tanks), which will then send a quantity of air to the brake cylinders proportional to the entity of the depression.

However, on units with Triple Valves (Distributore tipo Westinghouse) and 7-position levers, braking circuit is slightly different.

In this occurrence a possible solution is to overload again the system so pressures can be rebalanced, or, if this doesn't work, to manually "reset" the command reservoir (emptying it) by pulling a lever located outside.

On units with seven-position levers the risk is greater: the pipe is put to direct connection with the main tanks and, if the controller is left for too much time in the overload position, it may reach a very high pressure (even 9 bar or 900 kPa or 130 psi).

It is very easy for the brakes to remain in effect in this case, and the only practicable solution is to manually empty the command reservoir tanks as said above.

The first 108 locomotives originally had mounted a vigilance pedal designed by FS engineer Minucciani, that required a periodic acknowledgement from the driver when the train was moving (or emergency braking would have been commanded), but after the war, due to labor union pressures, it was discontinued; however, starting from the 1970s, many (not all) units received "Ripetizione Segnali a 4 codici" system, Hasler speedometer and a modified "speed graph recorder" (Zona tachigrafica), that also recorded the codes received from the RS.