Sapsans will run to Kiev, Yekaterinburg and Irkutsk at 300 km /h

High-speed railway for Sapsan trains will connect Moscow with Yekaterinburg and further, with Irkutsk. The trains will travel along it at 300 km/h and more. Most probably they will be Sapsan trains, which are supposed to be constructed in Russia, in co-operation with Siemens.

This route, Moscow - Nizhniy Novgorod - Yekaterinbug will have diverging branch lines to big cities of the Urals like Perm, Ufa, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen and Nizhniy Tagil. This project includes construction thousands kilometers of new special railtracks, stations, other engineering structures and of course, trains. It will take time, moreover, it costs 2 trillions rubles, but it seems to be worth it. 

It was also reportes, that Sapsans will run between Moscow and Kiev, and maybe in the nearest future.

source: Russia Info Centre

Serbia: Russian loan for Serbian railways to be activated in March

Minister of Infrastructure Milutin Mrkonjic stated on Monday that projects on the Serbian railway network funded from the Russian loan could start in March next year.

In a statement, the Ministry of Infrastructure said that Mrkonjic discussed the construction of the Belgrade railway junction, Prokop railway station and the Valjevo-Loznica railway line with a delegation of the Russian state railways, which is on a three-day visit to Serbia.

The aim of the visit is to examine the status of these projects and coordinate conceptual projects so that work could start as soon as possible.

Vice President of the Russian state railways Avtandil Gorgiladze underlined that the projects on the Serbian railway network are of great importance for Russia and that the intention is to reach an agreement with Serbia by the end of this year.

The projects on the Serbian railway network should be financed from a €800 million Russian loan for infrastructure in Serbia.

A general agreement on this loan was made during the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Belgrade in October 2009, it is added in the statement.

source: Balkans

Russian Railways to build high-speed Moscow – St Petersburg line

"By harmonizing European standards in the construction of a high-speed rail line between Moscow and St Petersburg, and by using modern financial instruments including contract lifecycle management, we will be able to reduce the cost of construction by 20-40%", according to Denis Muratov,

general director of Russian Railways subsidiary Skorostnye Magistrali, who was speaking at the High Speed Rail World 2010 international conference in Madrid.

Skorostnye Magistrali is currently preparing a study on the socio-economic significance of the Moscow - St Petersburg high-speed rail project. The project proposals will be submitted to the Russian government, which will make a final decision on the feasibility of creating the first national high-speed line (VSZhM-1), considering the cost and benefits of its construction.

"The draft project is being drawn up with the involvement of international financial, technical, and traffic consultants with extensive international experience in high-speed rail projects", Denis Muratov said.

Research carried out for Skorostnye Magistrali has shown that the substantial increase in population mobility brought by the launch of a high-speed rail line will ultimately help intensify the economic development of both St Petersburg and Moscow, as well as the regions between the two cities. The possible inclusion in the high-speed line of airports in Moscow and St Petersburg will boost the development of multi-modal transport links throughout northwest Russia.

Raising the speed of passenger train services will create more attractive conditions for passengers, improve the comfort and safety of passenger transport, and cut journey times, which will help attract additional passenger flows to the railway from air and car transport, thereby reducing the negative environmental impact of transport.

Denis Muratov said that recommendations are currently being prepared for setting out functional requirements to assess the cost of the entire project lifecycle. This work will be completed by the start of 2011.

The main technical specifications of the high-speed rail line project are already known. The journey time between the cities will be 2.5 hours, covering 660 km. Due to the difficult terrain and large number of water obstacles on the route, 256 engineering structures will be built (covering 72 km). The track will be able to carry 42 pairs of trains travelling at up to 400 km/h, with a passenger count of up to 14 million per year.

The total socio-economic benefit of the construction of a high-speed rail line between Moscow and St Petersburg could reach 1.8 trillion rubles.

According to the investment feasibility study, the project cost will be 1.2 trillion rubles (in line with Russian accounting standards). However, after the project plan is drawn up and tenders for construction are held, this figure is expected to decline by 20-40%.

Looking at international experience, a contract lifecycle management tender brought a 40% reduction in the cost of the Lisbon-Madrid high-speed line project.

source: Focus on Travel News

Rail Link from St. Petersburg Will Increase Helsinki-Vantaa Airport Passenger Levels

Finnish State Railways(VR) is optimistic the new fast Allegro rail link between St. Petersburg and Helsinki will also bring more passengers to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport.

Flights to foreign destinations are limited from St. Petersburg Airportt. VR hopes Russian travelers will use the new rail link to take advantage of Helsinki-Vantaa’s flight services.

“Currently the journey between the two cities takes six hours but the new Allegro service will reduce the journey time by almost half,” says VR’s Passenger Traffic Director, Antti Jaatinen.

Jaatinen adds both VR and Russian rail operators aim for a threefold increase in passenger numbers over the next decade to around 700,000 annually.

Feeding VR’s optimism is the projected completion, in 2014, of a direct rail link to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport from the capital.

The Finnish Transport Agency has also a long term vision whereby passengers from Russia travelling from Helsinki-Vantaa Airport might check-in to their flights at St. Petersburg and be conveyed directly to security control with baggage going its own way to the plane.

source: YLE

New train services between Russia and Finland

In connection with start of high-speed train service St. Petersburg - Helsinki on the December, 12, two Russian trains, Repin and Finnish Sibelius will carry out new services connecting North-western Russia with Southern Finland. So, Finnish-Russian railway services are developing.Allegro high-speed train will run St. Petersburg - Helsinki two times a day since December, 12, 2010. Amount of daily trips will be increased to four from the summer, 2011. Trains Repin and Sibelius plying between St. Petersburg and Helsinki now will stop their services. To compare: Allegro's occupancy is 350 passengers, while these ones transport 200 - 500 passengers in one trip. Amount of cars was varying depending on the amount of tickets sold.
Repin train is supposed to be redeployed to route St. Petersburg - Lappeenranta. Moreover, a possibility for new train services between southern Finnish cities and Petrozavodsk are also being discussed. Service to Lappeeranta is believed to be popular because of airport of this city, because of regular flights of Air Baltic and Ryanair discount air carriers. Most passengers of the train will be people using their services. Now they take taxi from St. Petersburg to Lappeeranta. It doesn't break Finnish laws, but Finnish border police doesn't like such practice at all.

source: http://www.russia-ic.com/