| Russian Railways agreed with the Germans to create a joint production of high-speed trains The head of Russian Railways, Gennady Fadeev, met in Munich over the weekend with members of the central board of Siemens AG Edward Krubasik and Rudi Lamprecht. As a result, a draft agreement was signed on the creation of a joint production of a modern electric train with a speed of up to 230 km/h. Siemens will be assigned the role of technology supplier. It is not yet clear how and under what conditions the project will be financed; as Russian Railways assures, nothing is said about this in the signed documents. All participants declined to comment on this topic yesterday, citing the fact that “the schemes have yet to be developed.” For this purpose, three working groups have already been created: on financial and organizational interaction, on the train design and on its production. Russian Railways announced yesterday that new trains will run on the routes Moscow-St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg-Helsinki, and subsequently Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow-Rostov-on-Don. The German side proposed to include the Omsk-Novosibirsk route in this list. In other words, high-speed communication should cover those directions where the track condition is more or less decent.
Today, only two “high-speed trains” operate on Russian railways between Moscow and St. Petersburg (“Nevsky Express” and ER-200). They can reach speeds of up to 200 km/h, but are already considered obsolete. The idea of connecting millionaire cities with high-speed highways was put forward by the disgraced head of the Ministry of Railways, Nikolai Aksenenko. Then she was resuscitated by Gennady Fadeev. A couple of months ago, he continued to hope for the infamous Russian project to create a high-speed express train “Sokol-250” for the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway, capable of accelerating to 250-350 km/h (cost 5 billion dollars). However, now it has finally been decided to abandon the project. As Mr. Fadeev has repeatedly said, “the main problem in organizing high-speed traffic remains the creation of electric locomotives capable of moving at speeds of up to 250 km/h.” Russian specialists are not yet able to solve this problem - the same ER-200 began to break down so often in the last month that some flights had to be cancelled. Car depot specialists claim that after each trip the train has to be almost completely rebuilt (which is why, by the way, tickets for this train are sold a maximum of 10 days before departure - there is never a guarantee that the flight will take place).
The need to create a high-speed train in Russia was again discussed after in July. Fadeev and Krubasik signed a memorandum of cooperation. One of the points in the document was the participation of Siemens in the development and production of a high-speed Russian electric train, which will run between major cities in the European part of the country. Until now, neither Russian Railways nor Siemens have commented on the project, citing the uncertainty of its prospects and the lack of a feasibility study. However, even now, when the first documents on the creation of a joint venture with a German concern have appeared, Russian Railways is finding it difficult to disclose the parameters of the project, since “a protocol of intent has yet been signed, and all the details, including financial ones, are unknown.” In informal conversations, railway workers do not rule out that most of the financing will fall on their budget. According to Vremya Novostey, yesterday at an operational meeting Mr. Fadeev already expressed his intention to achieve the inclusion of a new project in the as yet unapproved investment program of Russian Railways for the next year, which implies its increase. This, in turn, is based on the growth of the investment component in tariffs.
According to the official statement of Russian Railways, the production of new trains will be organized at the Moscow Locomotive Repair Plant (a branch of Russian Railways), the first train should appear by 2007. The future demand is estimated at more than 60 electric trains. The project operator, responsible for searching and attracting Russian component manufacturers, will be the financial and industrial group “New Transport Technologies”. She developed the Sputnik electric trains, which now run between Moscow and Mytishchi, as well as Aeroexpress trains to Domodedovo airport. By the way, this group has already collaborated with Siemens in the development of high-voltage equipment.
“The project with Siemens,” they say in Russian Railways, “allows us to solve the problem with the “Finnish project”, which, according to last year’s agreements, involves the creation of high-speed communication between St. Petersburg and Helsinki by 2007.” Next year, the Russian side should begin reconstructing the section from St. Petersburg to the border with Finland. “However, until now,” explains Russian Railways, “it was not clear what to do with the rolling stock that did not meet the speed parameters.” Yana GODOVANAYA |
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