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High-speed trains
The main aim of the programme is to make passenger trains run quicker, and to improve the quality and service of passenger trains.
Implementing the programme will allow transport links to be improved, create more attractive conditions for passengers, increase comfort and safety and reduce journey time. Creating these more attractive conditions will mean that more passengers will be encouraged to choose rail transport over air and automobile, which in turn will reduce losses on passenger trains and will also be ecologically advantageous.
Organising fast and high-speed trains will also reduce the demand for rolling stock, and will support and stimulate the scientific and intellectual potential of the country by placing orders for new world-class technology at Russian factories.
The main tasks of the programme are as follows:
- The manufacture of a new generation of fast and high-speed rolling stock
- Choosing the routes for fast and high-speed trains
- Ensuring fast and high-speed travel on the key priority routes in Russia
- Creating the technical equipment to run fast and high-speed trains
- Training staff to work with fast and high-speed trains
Three sets of measures have been set out as part of the programme:
1. Increasing the speed of long-distance passenger trains on journeys of more than 700km to 70-90km/hr. These routes will be served by passenger carriages with sleeping places.
2. Organising fast rail services after the reconstruction of existing lines between major regional centres, where the journey time does not exceed 7 hours, using fast trains that travel between 160km/hr and 200km/hr.
Priority routes include:
- St Petersburg– Buslovskaya (Russia’s border with Finland)
- Moscow – Smolensk – Krasnoe
- Moscow – Nizhny Novgorod
- Moscow – Kursk
- Moscow – Voronezh
- Moscow – Kaluga – Bryansk – Suzemka
- Moscow – Yaroslavl
- Rostov– Krasnodar
- Rostov– Mineralnye Vody
- Krasnodar – Mineralnye Vody
- Novosibirsk – Omsk, Tomsk, Kemerovo, Barnaul, Novokuznetsk
- Ekaterinburg – Chelyabinsk
- Samara – Saransk, Penza, Saratov
- Saratov – Volgograd
- Saratov – Michurinsk
3. Organising high-speed rail tracks on which trains can reach speeds of up to 350km/hr:
- St Petersburg – Moscow
- Moscow – Adler
On 17 June 2008, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed the Strategy for Developing Rail Transport to 2030. One of the key tasks within this strategy was the development of fast (up to 160km/hr) and high-speed (up 350km/hr) passenger rail travel.
The development of fast and high-speed travel will change the entire national transport system, as it will provide the population with the freedom to move between cities with minimal time losses. Implementing this strategy will help create high financial indicators for the sector, and will also guarantee a significant socio-economic effect for society, which means that with no exaggeration this can be called a revolutionary project for the country.
Introducing new technologies of fast passenger trains on Russian railways will allow for:
- Significant reduction in passenger journey times
- Improve journey conditions, increase comfort, and thus boost passenger levels up to 30%, and on international routes, up to 37%
- Create jobs in manufacturing and implementing new generation rail technology at Russian factories
- Raise technological processes in the transport machine building sector to a qualitatively new level
Fast passenger travel is regarded worldwide as the safest, most comfortable and most ecologically friendly form of transport. At the end of the 1990s, the first fast trains where introduced in Russia, on the route between Moscow and St Petersburg.
According to the 2030 strategy, over the next two decades, the amount of high-speed rail track in Russia will grow almost 17 times over – from the current 650km to 10,887km. Additionally, on a range of routes there are plans to build additional tracks to serve normal cargo, passenger and suburban trains, leaving special lines that are meant specially to serve fast trains.
High-speed rail projects require a large amount of investment from Russian Railways and are usually planned over a 3-5 year period.
The development of fast travel will not just take place in the region around the capitals, but also in the Far East, on the Volga, and in the South of Russia. As part of the project to create a fast link from Moscow to Sochi, the current track will be renovated. In order to avoid the hub of Rostov, a bridge will be built over the River Don. This will enable the journey time between Moscow and Sochi from 36 hours to 15 hours. It is also planned that the route along the Black Sea coast between Tuapse and Adler might be moved to a tunnel or an alternative mountain route.
In order to ensure fast transport in Russia, special infrastructure will be created, and fast trains with speeds of up to 350km/hr will be introduced. By 2030 the length of high-speed train tracks will be up to 1,500km. High-speed lines will link Moscow and St Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Smolensk and Krasnoe. Choosing options for the construction of the high-speed lines between Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow-Smolensk-Krasnoe (Western border) will be determined based on the dynamic of socio-economic development of the country.
One of the first high-speed routes will be organised between St. Petersburg and Moscow. As part of this project, the first high-speed train in Russia will be launched on December, 18 in cooperation with Siemens AG. The choice of this route for the pilot project was due to the high population density and heavy load of passenger flows. In this region, 18% of the population live and almost a quarter of GDP is created. Moving at speeds of up to 350km/hr over distances of 700-1000km, high-speed trains will be the market leader in terms of the quality to price ratio, becoming more competitive that air travel.
Experience of using fast trains in France, Japan and Germany shows that they require the railway tracks to be in good condition, and high demands for energy systems, technical service systems and rolling stock. This means that the development of fast and high-speed transport requires major technical and financial resources, renewal and changes in rail infrastructure, creating automatic control systems and broadening the centralised control rooms.
The planned level of investment according to 2007 prices is more than 1.26 trillion roubles, from which 630 billion (50%) will be financed by the Russian government, 315 billion roubles (25%) by Russian Railways, 252 billion roubles (20%) by Russian regions and 63 billion roubles (5%) by private investors. Using an international consortium to build the line Moscow-Smolensk-Krasnoe is being considered.
Overall, the development of fast and high-speed transport will allow for demands for rolling stock to be reduced and passenger trains to be less loss-making. It will attract passengers to the railway from other forms of transport, especially air and automobile. Additionally, orders will be placed at Russian factories and construction centres will be made for the development and creation of new types of world-class rail technology, which will allow the scientific and intellectual potential of the country to grow.