Development Projects of Russia: Industry, Energy and Infastructure

China has already developed 350 km/h freight trains, which run on the same track as regular high-speed passenger trains.
 


China is also reportedly working on developing a high-speed heavy freight train for transporting heavier goods like minerals, machinery, and other heavy loads, so I don't really like the excuse that high-speed railway infrastructure can't be used for cargo transportation.
Instead of making stupid excuses, Russia should instead focus on developing futuristic high-speed, super-heavy freight trains that can exceed speeds of at least 300 km/h. China is also working on it, so if you can join hands with them, it would be beneficial for both big countries.

You don't have to go crazy like the Japs, but at the same time, you don't want to go on Murican routes, which ignored high-speed railways in favour of trucks and aeroplanes and only focused on freight trains. Now look at the fate of the Murican Railway. Sadly, it seems Russia is heading in the same direction.

China has done railroading right for a very big country with challenging geography. China has a bullet train to Tibet, where the population is as low as in the Russian Far East or Far North. The Himalayas are not like the Swiss Alps. It's an unforgivingly hostile environment to build any railway infrastructure. Steep mountains+deep gorges, a lack of oxygen, unpredictable weather, heavy snowfall+very low temperatures, very fast river currents, frequent landslides, permafrosts, moving glaciers, avalanches, and worst of all, it's one of the most earthquake-prone regions in the world. But despite all of these challenges, China has managed to run an efficient high-speed railway connection to Tibet.

Russia is one of the most ideal countries for building a high-speed rail network because almost the entire terrain is flat.

I am not against airlines, but I think high speed railways are equally important for Russia.

Basically physics gets in the way of heavy or even moderate freight train from being high speed like that. Maybe in space it would work but gravity and friction play a major part where that won't work or won't work well.

Anyway, lancelot is 100% correct.

Building rail lines is cheaper than highways. So Russia should invest in more and differentiated rail lines. They are doubling up the BAM line and this
should be done for other stretches and I think they need to push even more rail lines to Primorsk and through northern Russia. The "northern latitudinal
diameter" project should have been implemented a long time ago. For passenger rail, they should have a high speed line spanning from St Petersburg to
Vladivostok. A dedicated 350 km/h line and not BS like shared freight-passenger as in Canada and the USA.

It's fine if you don't want high-speed heavy freight trains, but I don't understand why you want to sacrifice high-speed passenger trains for them.
Build two parallel major railway lines all across the country where all types of trains can run, and make many small intermediate junctions where relatively slow 160 kmph heavy freight trains or military trains can rest to give way to +300 kmph light freight trains or +400 kmph high-speed passager trains. It would totally be worth all the freight trains move. cost associated with building and overhauling all the major existing railway lines to this standardized new railway system, where both high-speed and relatively slow-speed trains can be operated all across the country. With that, you don't have to spend extra money to maintain separate high-speed railway tracks.
 
Of course, these rail lines need to be a few feet above the ground and surrounded by a fence. You need a reliable signaling system to avoid any mishaps, but this is not a big issue. Russia can develop an anti-collision AI for an emergency situation. For example, let's suppose that because of a signaling mistake, a high-speed train is quickly approaching a slow freight train on the same track. Even if everything fails, the on-board radar will detect a train on the same track, and the AI will send signals to apply emergency breaks to this train and all other trains behind it on the same track. Japan has been successfully using a somewhat similar method for their bullet trains during earthquakes and tsunamis. This isn't rocket science, and no one does rocket science better than the Russians. So it all boils down to political will and funding.


Russia doesn't have major geographical obstacles, so If it's implemented correctly, it would cost significantly less compared to any other country because Russia doesn't have to dig tunnels after tunnels every three to four kilometers. Now that I've started to think about it, it makes more and more sense for Russia to have such a high-speed railway infrastructure than to not have it.
 
This was a French 330-kmph high-speed electric locomotive train in 1955.



It was tested and later operated on convenient railway tracks along with slow regional trains and fast trains.

French TGV train + 500 kph.



It was also tested on and now mostly operates on conventional railway tracks. They did some overhauling and minor tweaking on the track to make it robust enough to withstand the insane 576 kmph speed, but that's all they did. You can see in the video that they didn't even bother to put up guard barriers to protect the tracks.
 
Contrary to what you believe, a high-density population is not always a blessing.
The French TGV can't operate to their full potential because they've got to stop at so many stations in such short distances because of high population density, and they also have to operate very frequently. Now imagine the situation in smaller European countries with high population densities. It's even worse for Asian countries like Japan and China, where the population is so large that they have to operate bullet trains on a very tight schedule at intervals of 5 to 10 minutes to meet the demand.


Russia has no such issues. They could easily operate at +500 kmph in the vast, empty expanses of Russia with zero stoppage in between two major settlements. Because of the low population, they could operate bullet trains at intervals of 3 hours and let freight trains operate most of the time. When a bullet train is running, you rest the freight and regional trains on junctions, and after the bullet train has passed, you again let

Russia just has much lower population density than a country like China. Especially in the Far East region.

It is not about population numbers or density... in fact high density means less need to travel faster... if the main street of a town is five stories high buildings full of shops by only 300m long then you don't need a train or a car to visit those shops. If the main street is 30km long then you are going to need some sort of transport to get to the shops or places that interest you... whether that is a car or a train.

Russia has enormous distances and if you are only going at low speeds a lot of trips simply wont be considered worth the effort.

The trans siberian rail line takes days, but if it took a month then no one except hard core train enthusiasts would bother... if it moved at much higher speeds it would become a more attractive alternative compared with other methods of travel.

Russia has plenty of energy so high speed is not a huge issue... they could run gas lines down the tracks and have gas turbine powered electricity stations all along the tracks for cars and trains and trucks and other vehicles making the trip... and in 20 years time the gas lines can carry hydrogen to keep the greenies happy.

High speed makes it more attractive and a method of transport as long as it does not make things too expensive.

Basically physics gets in the way of heavy or even moderate freight train from being high speed like that.

Actually the power to weight ratio of a freight train compared with that of a truck shows the train would be vastly more efficient... these are not drag racing cars that get to top speed in 2 seconds, the speed is built up and while acceleration is not eye watering it should be able to get up to very very high speeds... and most importantly a train carrying coal from a coal mine to a port or to China does not stop off at every village dropping off or picking up more coal... which means it accelerates to speed and then it keeps going at that speed until there is a problem ahead or it gets to where it is going... and that would actually make it vastly more efficient than a train carrying passengers where people might want to get off or people at the station might want to get on...

A dedicated 350 km/h line and not BS like shared freight-passenger as in Canada and the USA.

Shared passenger and freight lines sounds to me like an attempt as sabotage by different factions... whether they are airliner factions, bus factions, or truck driver associations that want to weaken their competition no matter how much good sense it makes for them to be doing the work.

You need a reliable signaling system to avoid any mishaps, but this is not a big issue.

They are designing autonomous robot trucks and cars and busses and similar safety considerations are needed for congested air space, and also even shipping, so this should not be too big a problem really.

This technology can also be sold to the rest of the world as well.

It is amusing that the west is suggesting that rail lines and airfields in Russia are not needed... because they don't want Russia to grow and develop...

Because of the low population, they could operate bullet trains at intervals of 3 hours and let freight trains operate most of the time. When a bullet train is running, you rest the freight and regional trains on junctions, and after the bullet train has passed, you again let

Trains carrying heavy loads of coal or ore or even gas or oil are more sensible to make fast because they don't need to stop in villages and pick up post or passengers... it makes sense for them to load up and go to their destination as fast as possible.

One of the reasons for building extra tracks in BAM is to increase the capacity to move products... moving faster will also help with that problem.

The world's first nuclear power plant with a spectral-controlled reactor will be built in the Murmansk Region and will give the first current by 2035.
Such reactors make it possible to reuse nuclear fuel and, working in conjunction with fast neutron reactors, will make it possible to close the nuclear fuel cycle.

Fantastic.

On a related note I just saw on Australian TV a news reporter ripping in to someone he was interviewing for suggesting that nuclear power is a viable energy source for the future. The guy mentioned that nuclear is part of the solution, but the interviewer seemed upset that he was discounting green technologies, except nuclear is a zero carbon gas emission technology and therefore very green.

Looking forward to the word gymnastics required to go from the current western position on nuclear power to where they will end up...

Sprut-B wrote:Good initiative, but Russia shouldn't ignore high-speed railway development because Russia has one of the best geographical features for such development as most of the land is completely flat. But sadly, the Russian government and the Russian people are obsessed with cars and air travel, just like the Muricans. Air travel will never be as efficient as high-speed rail. Japan, China, Italy, and Spain have successfully killed their short-haul airlines with their super-efficient high-speed railway networks.

China is currently the undisputed leader in high-speed railway construction. They have created overnight bullet trains that have also successfully killed long-distance flights within their country. If you have an emergency, then you take the flight; otherwise, the bullet train trumps air travel in every other circumstance You don't even have to book hotels because you will be sleeping throughout the night in the comfort of a high-speed train cruising through the continent

Russia is now swimming in cash, and sanctions were imposed on their airline and car industries, so it's the ideal time to switch to the most efficient form of public transport, aka the long-distance high speed railway sector.

You've got to just ask the Chinese, and they'll jump in to develop your high-speed railway at a fraction of the cost. You can even set a 1 year deadline to finish such a megaproject on the entire European side of Russia. Not only that, they are also willing to transfer the technology. But a lack of political motivation and the stupid carbon copy of Ameri car culture have prevented the Russkies from enjoying such a marvellous, innovative, and hassle-free travelling experience in their day-to-day lives.

To be fair, Russia has far, far more of a rail travel culture than America does. In fact they both developed this culture in the 19th century but America has long since lost it, probably because of the advent of the automobile and their obsession with private ownership, which ultimately prevented the consolidation of the rail transport industry in America.

In Russia this wasn't so. Road construction lagged behind and certainly the development of car transport along with it. Railroads on the other hand were only increasingly prioritized throughout the Tsarist era and then into the Soviet one. As a result Russia ended up with a huge, integrated and generally very well developed rail network, even if by now its showing its age next to the new Asian ones.

Car culture is actually a pretty new thing in Russia, it only really took off in the 90s and 2000s. It's an inevitability though that one now exists, as not only are the roads better now, but 40% of Russian families own dachas in the countryside, and some families outright live in the countryside while commuting to work in the city, and taking into account the distances and population densities prevalent in Russia - cars are simply the most efficient means to getting to and from. Even with the presence of suburban train networks.

It's not car culture that the rail network in Russia should be competing against, but rather air transport, and this IMO is the real inefficiency in Russia. In the Soviet era air travel within the country was heavily subsidized. And today they are returning to subsidization. But instead of all this, it'll be worth investing in high-speed rail travel along the major transport arteries in Russia. This would eliminate the need for subsidization, make travel more convenient, and drastically cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
Imagine if you had high-speed rail not only from Moscow to St. Petersburg via Tver (Novgorod should be added too), but also from Moscow to Tehran via Ryazan, Tambov, Volgograd, Makhachkala, Derbent, Baku and Rasht. Or Moscow to China via Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Astana, Karaganda and then seamlessly linking into the Chinese high-speed rail network, to take you to any destination there. You can add a line in the future from Moscow to the Crimea via Voronezh and the Donbass, or from Moscow to Krasnodar & Sochi reaching a bunch of cities in between too.

I don't really understand what's preventing Russia from working on high-speed railway connections. High-speed railways are a necessity, not a luxury.

Cars can be considered luxuries, but for Russia, they're also necessary because of its vast landmass. Similarly, airlines are also necessary, as not every place can be connected through high-speed railways, although with enough political will, high-speed railway connections are possible everywhere. China has proven it by building a bullet train route to Tibet, nestled in the mighty Himalayas, and the Himalayas are one of the most hostile places in the world to build any basic infrastructure, let alone a bullet train line.

Fortunately, Russia doesn't have such geographical hurdles. They don't even have to make hundreds of tunnels to set up straight lines for high-speed railways. Russia is pretty flat, which is ideal for high-speed rail construction. You can construct two perpendicular, straight high-speed railway lines going out in four directions from your city until they connect another city or a major town. This way, you can create an entire web ️ of high-speed railway lines.
 
High-speed railway lines can also be used for freight trains, with new locomotives designed to run at a speed of 160 km/h. Russia doesn't have a very large population, so they can run bullet trains at intervals of two to three hours and let freight and local regional trains run most of the time. That way, it would be profitable to run high-speed railway lines even in remote regions, but profit should not be the first priority for such infrastructure development.
 
French TGV high-speed trains run on regular reinforced railway lines, but surprisingly, they're much smoother, much faster, and much more practical than the overhyped Japanese bullet trains. South Korea has been using French Alstom high-speed trains, and now they've developed a new high-speed train based on the French trains. A remarkable feature of the French high-speed train is the old-school power cars at both ends of the train to pull or push the train, unlike other high-speed trains where power is equally distributed in all bogies. The main advantage is that the train would remain stable and solid even at extreme speeds on a regular railway track, but one big disadvantage is that it cannot take quick turns.



The French TGV speed record is 575 km/h on a conventional railway track. The craziest fact is that, it's even much faster than the Shanghai megleve. No other train can run that fast without getting derailed in the process. TGV remains stable, as if it's floating like a megleve. It's truly remarkable for a train to achieve such speed, so sacrificing the turning ability is well justified.



This is the new S-Korean train based on the French design. In the beginning of the video, you can also spot regular locomotive trains operating on the same railway route.


I think the French TGV-style high-speed railway is better suited for Russia if they don't want to use Chinese bullet trains. Unfortunately, Russia didn't acquire French trains, and now they cannot because of sanctions.

So Russia should work on developing its own high-speed train. If enough funding is provided, Russian engineers could come up with something similar to or better than the TGV train. A +500 km/h high-speed double-decker overnight sleeper train would be so convenient for the Russian people to travel around their big country.

Imagine you're living in Murmansk and you have to travel to Moscow for one day. With such a train connection, you don't have to book a hotel to stay, as you would be boarding in train in the afternoon in Murmansk, spending the entire night inside the cosy compartment of the high-speed train, and waking up in the morning in Moscow. And by the evening, you can again hop on a returning train and arrive back in Murmansk the next morning. It would be a really amazing travel experience. Russian people should put pressure on their politicians to take such an initiative for the greater good of the country.

Of course, it was a test run, but no other high-speed train could reach such speed, at least not on a regular train track. And it was a full length train. It might look short because it was double-decker and was running at an incredible speed. 

This is a regular TGV double-decker passenger train, and as you can see, it also looks pretty short, just like the test run train. 


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Trying to get aircraft speeds on the ground is a bad idea. Getting from one end of Russia to the other fast requires aircraft travel. But
regionally, high speed rail is a good option. I like the example of the corridor between Montreal and Toronto here in Canada. The best
option would be high speed rail compared to both highway and air travel. The overhead from airport security, wait and commute turns
a 1.3 hour flight into around 4 hours of travel. Using the highway under ideal conditions results in travel time of over 5 hours with
reasonable breaks. If we had a high speed rail option the typically 5 hour (very rarely just over 4 hours) travel time would be under
3 hours. The current max speed is 150 km/hr but more like 100 km/hr due to use of a crappy freight line where some sections involve
swaying of cars like they are about to derail. A consistent 250 km/hr speed is achievable and would make the use of the train preferable.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said on July 18 that about 1 thousand km of roads are planned to be repaired in new regions in 2023.

"Under 1 thousand km of roads will be repaired and built in new territories," he told reporters.

Khusnullin added that at this stage, a draft five-year road activity plan for the period 2024-2028 is being prepared.

Meanwhile, according to the five-year transport construction plan for the period from 2022 to 2027, it is planned to build and update more than 140 thousand km of roads in the Russian Federation during this time. Also, by 2027, 85% of agglomeration roads, 85% of core network roads, and 56% of regional roads will be put in order.

In addition, the Deputy Prime Minister reported earlier that by 2025, more than 37 thousand km of roads of regional, municipal and local significance will be maintained in four new regions of the country.

On July 18, the Governor of the Krasnodar Territory, Mikhail Kotyukov, announced that 110 road facilities would be put in order by the end of this year. These include several sections in rural areas with a total length of about 25 km.

Earlier, on July 13, it was reported that 24 km of the federal highway will be repaired in the Belgorod region. The road surface must be updated from May 2024 to July 2025.

And on June 7, the North-West Federal Highway Administration announced that 55 km of federal highways R-23 and R-56 will be repaired in the Pskov region. The work will last until mid-August. A similar repair will begin in mid-August on the section R-23 St. Petersburg-Pskov-Pustoshka-Nevel-border with the Republic of Belarus from 481 to 501 km.

https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.en.38e8c97d-64b6dac8-5337f532-74722d776562/https/iz.ru/1546062/2023-07-18/khusnullin-rasskazal-o-remonte-1-tys-km-dorog-v-novykh-regionakh-v-2023-godu?main_click

Trying to get aircraft speeds on the ground is a bad idea. Getting from one end of Russia to the other fast requires aircraft travel.

Even very fast trains can't compete with aircraft for shifting people around... for people going from one side of the country to the other then a plane obviously makes sense... you fill the plane up and off you go with no stops on the way. You also have regional planes that go on shorter hops from one place to another and you try to keep those full too, to make it efficient. For cargo I would think a train that stops in most populated settlements will be stopping and starting all the time so enormous speeds would be a bit redundant, but picking up and dropping off cargo is rather useful in the scheme of things including things from Asian markets going to places along the line heading to the west of Russia.

Separating out the trains and planes that stop at every stop from the ones that don't need to stop at all means the fast trains can go fast, but even the slow trains can be made faster. There is no value in going slower than you need to.

Although he made some minor mistakes, it's actually a pretty decent video appreciating Soviet housing design principles. The overall Implementation may not have been perfect, but this was the largest social benefit programme ever initiated by a government just for the sake of improving people's living standards.

I have been to a friend's apartment in St. Petersburg in a building from the 1980s. The ventilation is superb and you can't tell that a smoker lives there.
You do not hear the ventilation. The layout is nice and includes a bathroom with a tub (so no communal baths required). I have lived in various
condo and apartment buildings in the US and Canada and the construction quality is utter shit compared to the "commie block". The Soviet building
has proper concrete walls whereas the precious western garbage has drywall which allows you to hear your neighbour breathe.

I recall the NATzO propaganda about "drab Soviet facades" back in the 1980s insinuating that the buildings were shoddy and miserable. But in the
1990s those same "crappy" buildings became prime real estate.

Mariopol steel factory is back on line.

https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/95460

As for now, only a part of it works, but big enough to give jobs to 3700 people.
Components made will be used for refurbishing and reconstructing the remaining part of the plant.
24 000 people will work there at a full capacity.

Yes, the gut is saying that it is a metal sheet line that operates. It will be used for repairing existing hangars and buildings first.

kvs wrote:I have been to a friend's apartment in St. Petersburg in a building from the 1980s.   The ventilation is superb and you can't tell that a smoker lives there.
You do not hear the ventilation.   The layout is nice and includes a bathroom with a tub (so no communal baths required).   I have lived in various
condo and apartment buildings in the US and Canada and the construction quality is utter shit compared to the "commie block".   The Soviet building
has proper concrete walls whereas the precious western garbage has drywall which allows you to hear your neighbour breathe.  

I recall the NATzO propaganda about "drab Soviet facades" back in the 1980s insinuating that the buildings were shoddy and miserable.   But in the
1990s those same "crappy" buildings became prime real estate.  

I live in a house that was built in 1970. This is a typical five-storey panel building, my apartment is on the top floor. Yesterday it was -12 degrees Celsius outside, wind and snowfall. The temperature in my entrance is kept at +19...+21 degrees. My apartment is about +19 (actually it's easily +22, but I regularly open the window and the door to the balcony, as it's too hot for me). My batteries are heated to a level of +63..+65 degrees, hot water flows from the tap at a temperature of +73 degrees. How do I know the exact values- well, I measured them with a thermal imager. I take a hot shower for at least 15-20 minutes, a couple of times a day. My apartment has gas, and my electricity consumption is about 200 kilowatt hours per month. At the same time, my entire rent is 5,700 rubles per month. Another 500 rubles is spent on paying for the Internet at a speed of 100 megabits.
I know people from Britain who work, but now the temperature at home is only +10, because heating bills are high even for working people in Britain. They can't even dream of the luxury of a hot shower, since the hot water in the storage unit simply won't be enough for 15 minutes of a shower.
Yes, tell me more about how Soviet housing is crap compared to Western housing.