The first stage of the creation of high-speed railway services in Russian Federation will be the construction of the Moscow to Kazan rail track of the HSL-2 link, which will run across the territory of 6 constituent entities of Russian Federation: Moscow and Moscow region, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod region and Tatarstan. Subsequent development of the rail link includes its extension to Yekaterinburg.
An ambitious high-speed rail project between Moscow and Kazan recently received a financing boost from China. The agreement signed by the two superpowers plans to bring next-generation trains to Russia’s high-speed network, but it also marks the first step towards a much grander vision to link Moscow and Beijing by rail.
The “Moscow-Kazan” high speed railway is the HSR 2 “Moscow – Yekaterinburg” pioneer sector project that implies the construction of the dedicated high-speed rail line passing through six regions and reducing the travel time between its capitals on average up to 1 hour. By the means of increasing the population mobility and creating a large number of new jobs HSR “Moscow-Kazan” will establish the foundation for the Russian Federation transport system future innovative modernisation.
“In accordance with the 2030 Transport Development Strategy (adopted in 2008), special attention will be given to rapid and high-speed rail lines, which can achieve very high speeds: the high-speed rail lines should be able to run up to 400 km/h. They are, of course, completely different railways”, Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation said.
“The construction of the high-speed rail line and its current apparent Moscow-Kazan main line present a definite area and an entire field for innovation. In this case, we are tasked with implementing of a range of solutions and innovations connected not only with multiple units traveling at speeds of up to 400 km/h, but also with providing appropriate infrastructure, a management system, and traffic safety”, Maksim Sokolov, Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation explained.
Russian Railways is hoping to launch its planned Moscow-Kazan high-speed railway by 2022, according to a statement made by the CEO of Russian Railways, Oleg Belozerov, announced. “We have come a long way with our Chinese and European partners in pulling this project together, and we believe that by 2022 we will go beyond Vladimir, probably as far as Kazan,” Belozerov said.
The railway’s design has reached its final stage, Belozerov stated, and the plan covering the area extending to Vladimir is ready to be reviewed by GlavGosExpertiza, a federal assessment agency.
The total investment costs are estimated to be more than EUR 14.6 billion. It is possible that in the future the Moscow-Kazan stretch will be part of a greater Moscow-Beijing high-speed line, code-named “Silk Road,” which will link China with Europe and the Middle East.
To construct the railway, China is ready to issue a 20-year EUR 5.86 billion loan and EUR 1.46 billion as a contribution to the shareholders’ equity of a newly created company.
The project will be partially financed by a German consortium, formed by Siemens, Deutsche Bahn and Deutsche Bank, which offered EUR 2.7 billion.
The high-speed rail will extend over 770 kilometres, allowing for a top speed of 400 kilometres per hour with stops occurring every 50 to 70 kilometres. Travel time between Moscow and Kazan will drop significantly from the current 14 hours to 3.5 hours.
by Elena Ilie
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