The management Board of Russian Railways has approved the updated programme of the high-speed railway by 2030, which, according to the company, will cost RUB 5 trillion (USD 70.4 billion) in prices in 2015, “Vedomosti” reports.
Among others, the program includes Moscow – Kazan – Yekaterinburg, Moscow – Adler and Moscow – St. Petersburg high-speed lines.
The updated programme includes 20 projects to build high-speed railway and will allow trains to run on 50 high-speed routes. According to President of Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov, the backbone of the high-speed rail network is Moscow — Kazan — Yekaterinburg, Moscow — Adler and Moscow — St. Petersburg.
According to Russian Railways high-speed rail strategy, the 350 km/h network includes St Petersburg – Moscow, Moscow – Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow – Smolensk – Krasnoe. This last is part of International Transport Corridor 2 and could be extended westwards into the European Union. In addition, within the strategy, the company includes the projects that involves the reconstruction of the existing line between key regional centres to handle high-speed services using fast trains running at 160 km/h to 200 km/h. A key priority is the route from central Russia to the south-Moscow – Adler/Sochi, by combining the modernisation of the current route with the construction of a new line along the Prokhorovka – Zhuravka – Chertkovo – Bataisk section. The total length of high-speed lines in this category will be around 11,000 route-km. On some routes, additional track will have to be laid to accommodate conventional passenger and suburban trains, as well as freight services.
In 2021-2025, it is planned construction of the HSR Rostov – Krasnodar – Adler, Tula and Voronezh, and the extension of HSR from Kazan to Elabuga, a number of other high-speed regional routes.
Total investment needed for the high-speed strategy is estimated at RUB 12.6 trillion (USD 177.6 billion) in the maximum scenario, and RUB 564.9 billion (USD 7.95 billion) in the minimum scenario.
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