The head of Russia’s Academy of Sciences (RAN) said he has submitted to President Vladimir Putin a proposal for building a high-speed railway that would cut across most of Siberia and all the way to the Bering Strait, the strip of water that divides Russia from Alaska.
The „very large-scale and expensive” project would help the economic development of Russia’s vast and resource-rich eastern regions, the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN), Vladimir Fortov, said in an interview with the government’s official Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily.
Fortov gave no further indication of the project’s estimated costs, funding or other details, saying only that the proposal was part of the academy’s attempts to present economic development ideas sought by the government, according to the interview.
Russian Railways, the state-owned rail monopoly, is already working to expand a high-speed network that aims eventually to span the distance from Beijing to Europe along the route of the existing Trans Siberian Railway, but the project is struggling to raise the billions necessary for its construction.
Plans have been unveiled for an ambitious new transport route through Russia with a mega road and high-speed rail network to link Asia with Europe. At a meeting of the Russian Academy of Science, the head of the Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin presented the idea for the Trans-Eurasian belt Development (TEPR). Seen as a powerful and versatile transportation corridor it would join up to other networks and reach from the Atlantic to the Pacific, via the heart of Siberia and the Far East. The project would see not only a new train network built alongside the Trans-Siberian Railway but the construction of major roads, pipelines for oil and gas, and the laying of facilities for electricity and water supplies.
Photo: transsiberian.info
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