The Moscow-Kazan high-speed railway project is considered the first step towards the high-speed railway network in Russia, which will connect both to the Asian side and to the European side. The design documentation for two phases has been recently approved and several technical details have been established. A series of agreements have also been signed for the financial engagement of other entities in addition to the Chinese side, and the purchase of rolling stock could soon be launched as authorities expect trains to be delivered in 2019.
Measuring 790 km in length, the high-speed rail line that will link the Russian capital of Moscow to the city of Kazan, located in the south-west of the country, will allow trains to run at speeds of up to 400 km/h and will significantly reduce travel time. The line will serve 16 stations and it will span across 7 regions of Russia, thus providing efficient rail connections between major cities such as Moscow, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan and more. The Moscow-Kazan line is the first phase in the development of a high-speed railway network in Russia which in its second phase will be extended to Yekaterinburg. It should be mentioned that China Railway Group Ltd and Ural Highway signed an agreement in the amount of USD 2.5 billion in June to build a rail connection for the high-speed rail line connecting Yekaterinburg to Chelyabinsk, allowing trains to travel at speeds of over 250 km/h. According to the Strategy for Developing Rail Transport up to 2030, Moscow will have high-speed connections to Yekaterinburg, Saint-Petersburg and Adler (Moscow-Rostov-na-Donu-Adler). The planned high-speed network includes projects in areas with over 100 million inhabitants which account for 70% of Russia’s population. The rail line project is a priority for the Russian transport authorities and the project is started phase by phase in order for major construction works to commence in 2018, as stated by the Transport Minister, Maksim Sokolov. The state expert evaluation authority Glavgosexpertiza approved in July the design documentation for phases 3 and 4 of the Moscow-Vladimir-Nizhny Novgorod-Cheboksary-Kazan HSR, designed for speeds of over 400 km/h. Said phases include works to prepare the site for the construction of the line and of the related facilities of the section from Zheleznodorozhnaya station (suburb of Moscow) to Vladimir station. The approved section has a length of 172 km and three stations: Noginsk, Orekhovo-Zuevo and Petushki. The design documentation was approved considering the need to combine the construction works of the railway line and of the new sections of the M-7 Volga highway, bypassing two cities located in the Moscow District (Balashikha and Noginsk). Design Two main routes with a total length of 384 km have been designed in the documentation subject to evaluation, of which 100 km will be built using the technology of the railway superstructure of the track on ballast and 284 km using the technology of ballastless construction. This technology will allow maintaining the stability of track geometry and of high-speed trains, minimizing maintenance costs and reducing the wear of the rolling stock. The line will be equipped with modern communication and locking systems, GSM-R / DMR communication modules, thermal viewers and surveillance cameras. 151 engineering structures were also designed, including 26 large and medium bridges, 10 elevated railway tracks and 8 underground tracks, and there will also be engineering structures to pass field roads and the migration of wild animals. The design documentation was prepared by a Russian-Chinese consortium, commissioned by Glavgosexpertiza and consisting of Mosgiprotrans, Nizhegorodmetroproekt and China Railway Eryuan Engineering. The Moscow-Vladimir approved stretch is expected to offer an estimated journey time of 56 minutes with 50 pairs of trains every day carrying 20 million passengers by 2035. Technical solutions were also adopted this year for all elements of the high-speed railway infrastructure for different speeds and a “positive conclusion” was received on the conduct of a public technological and price audit for the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod section. The audit was performed by Ernst & Young and the public audit for all sections was carried out and confirmed to be “valid”.
Interested financing entities
The partnering up for railway infrastructure projects, the financial aspects in a PPP model, the capital increase and the international funding are all vital elements in completing any infrastructure project, especially one such as the Moscow–Kazan line. In addition to the federal government and China, which announced their participation in the project, JSC High-Speed Rail Lines has also signed several agreements to fund the project. Several agreements were signed in June to finance the project whose total value is more than RUB 1 trillion (USD 17 billion), while in the construction phase the government investment will not exceed RUB 70 billion per year (USD 1.19 billion). For the first section, Moscow-Vladimir, the project will be implemented based on the corporate model of RZD, while for the next three sections (Vladimir-Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod-Cheboksary and Cheboksary-Kazan) the project will be implemented based on the PPP principles, using the concession agreement mechanism. RZD and Blagosostoyanie, the non-state pension fund, have signed an agreement whereby the fund will participate in financing the project. The amount has not been announced, however, the agreement aims at the financial cooperation between the two parties to implement the high-speed rail line project. “Blagosostoyanie is one of the leaders of non-state pension provision in Russia. It has a high financial stability rating and therefore its participation in the Project will not only attract the necessary financing, but will also minimize its risks,” JSC High-Speed Rail Lines said. SOGAZ Insurance (Insurance Company of the Gas Industry) and RZD signed the cooperation agreement to carry out the rail line project, the main goal being to increase the capital for the implementation of the line. With the participation of SOGAZ the necessary financing will be tapped into and the risks will be minimized, conditions will be created for the development of the high-speed railway network and protection of the ownership interests of participants in the project will be provided. An agreement of intent has also been signed with Sberbank, outlining the general principles of interaction between JSC High-Speed Rail Lines and the bank and making it a point to attract Sberbank’s experience in HR, IT, marketing, financial consulting in the selection of regional contractors involved in the implementation of the project, but also to work together with the regional authorities. “Sberbank has recently gone beyond the financial structure. We are ready to offer our partners a much wider range of services for consulting and IT support of projects, to share our experience in different areas. I have no doubt that for Sberbank the experience of cooperation with High-Speed Rail Lines will be useful and positive,” Piotr Koltypin, the Sberbank’s Vice President said. Regarding the financials, RZD announced last year that China signed an agreement for the allocation of RUB 400 billion (USD 6.78 billion) of which RUB 250 billion (USD 4.2 billion) for the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod section and RUB 150 billion (USD 2.5 billion) for the Nizhny Novgorod-Kazan section. China will also offer RUB 53 billion (USD 900 million) as equity financing.
In May 2017, the First Vice-President of RZD, Alexander Misharin, stated that the Chinese partners should have raised the credit for the construction of the Moscow-Kazan line and cut the interest rate, but that the final details needed to be finalized by the Chinese side. More than 100 high speed trains Regarding the rolling stock, RZD, China Railway, Sinara and CRRC agreed in June 2016 to create a joint production of high-speed trains in Russia. The agreement consolidates the efforts of companies to supply orders for the procurement of rolling stock for at least 100 high-speed trains capable to travel at speeds exceeding 300 km/h. According to the agreement, Sinara will organize production and CRRC will take charge of the issues of design, standards control in production, license to use technology, as well as technical support. CRRC and Sinara Group have approved this year the programme of stage-by-stage localization of rolling stock production for high-speed rail lines in Russia and to this end the representatives of RZD and the Chinese side have signed the relevant papers. It should be noted that the Russian Government approved in 2016 the rolling stock tender programme for this line, according to which the vehicles would be delivered by the end of 2019 with a component localization of up to 80%. At the end of 2016, after a meeting with Giovanni Rocca, Vice-President of Promotion of International Activities at Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, Misharin said that a joint working group would be set up to ensure operational coordination and discussion of all issues regarding participation of Russian and Italian companies in the implementation of the project. Also last year, another group consisting of German companies interested in supplying trains announced its intention to offer EUR 2.7 billion (over USD 3 billion) for the high-speed rail project.
The group includes Siemens, supplier of the Sapsan and Lastochka trains to the Russian Railways. Siemens and RZD are developing a series of projects to produce a new generation of Lastochka long-distance trains (the agreement of intent was signed in June between RZD, Siemens and Sinara) and also for the launching of a processing and analysis center to handle data from the operation of rolling stock and railway infrastructure, but also to carry out diagnostics and maintenance of the Lastochka trains. In July 2017, Alexander Misharin said that “the rolling stock manufacturer would be selected based on the results of the tender. The most important thing is that today we can start producing high-speed rolling stock in Russia. It will be the rolling stock created with colleagues from China, Germany, but it will be produced in Russia,” he explained. The necessary rails to be purchased can be manufactured by Evraz, at the factory in Chelyabinsk. Evraz steel producer has shipped the first lot of 100-meter rails intended for high-speed lines to the Russian Railways since mid-2015 (this first lot was delivered for the Saint-Petersburg-Moscow line). “High-speed mixed traffic rails can be used in any existing high-speed lines in Russia and future high-speed line between Moscow and Kazan,” the company said. By putting the Moscow–Kazan line into service the travel time will be shortened by approximately 11 hours (to 3 hours and 17 minutes instead of the 14 hours it takes now), making rail transport more attractive. It will not only provide national rail connections, but will also impact high-speed connections in Asia and Europe. Considered a Eurasian high-speed railway corridor, it will secure connections along the Beijing-Kazakhstan-Russia-Moscow-Minsk axis, and further to Western Europe, specifically Berlin, Germany. According to the Transport Minister, Maksim Sokolov, the length of this corridor is 10 thousand km.
by Pamela Luica
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