Russian Railways: News

Soviet and later Russian subway stations were always designed with large numbers of passengers in mind. The stations
in Toronto that were built during the 1950s and 1960s and which account for most stations are cramped nonsense. They
are kept in good repair but the ones with the Russian type central platform layout (as opposed to the two platform layout)
practically push you onto the rails in sections with stairs and escalators.



New York has similar abominations:



But not all the New York subway stations were this bad. Some of the earliest had some taste:



But these were abandoned. Toronto never had any such stations and only the more recent ones
are rather nice.

Trains to take off, or 12 billion for the production of high-speed trains in Russia
22 February

Cyclolettes first! We have dedicated one of our previous publications to them. Now it's time to talk about trains. The fact is that the Ural Locomotives plant is launching Sapsans into production. Their speed is 360 km / h. Let's figure out what the project is and what it will give the country.

Where and why is the fast train rushing

Russian Railways will receive 42 new-type high-speed trains at its disposal. This is Sapsan-2. They are developed and delivered by Uralskie Lokomotivy LLC, a joint plant of Siemens and Sinara Group. It is known that the project will require at least 12 billion rubles. At the same time, the first Sapsan-2, according to the plan, will appear already in 2023. And in 2025 they will be put into operation.

They will launch "Sapsan-2" in the direction "Moscow - St. Petersburg" and back. Russian Railways is already using high-speed trains for transportation on this route. Later on high-speed lines new trains will "fly" from Moscow to Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod and back.

Fantastic journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow

Time will help to assess the significance of the new project for Russian railways. And it will be halved for passengers traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg and back. This route is still used by "Sapsans". Here are just "Sapsans-2" will move between the capitals in just 2 hours.

What how much

According to the estimates of the employees of Russian Railways, the money for the construction of Sapsanov-2 will return by 2037. At the same time, they do not plan to increase the cost of the trip. It will remain the same as in the case of traveling on the Sapsan. So, for an economy class ticket, a passenger will pay about 3,500 rubles.

It's not about money

But the question is not only about payback. Here is how Mikhail Blinkin, Director of the Institute for Transport Economics and Transport Policy at the Higher School of Economics, spoke about the significance of the new project for Russia:

“There is an opinion that rail transportation will either go to the high-speed segment, or give way to buses, cars, planes. The appearance of the country's first high-speed highway is a powerful impetus for the development of transport engineering".

In other words, it is more important not that Sapsans-2 will reduce travel time, but that they are the result of modern technologies that are already available to the inhabitants of Japan, China and Europe.

And to close the question of the need for new trains for Russia, let us turn to the statistics. According to travel services, every fifth traveler on a long trip chooses a train. At the same time, Sapsans transported 5.7 million passengers in Russia in 2019, even overtaking aviation.

https://zen.yandex.ru/media/sferalive/poezda-na-vzlet-ili-12-mlrd-na-proizvodstvo-vysokoskorostnyh-poezdov-v-rossii-6033fd78a332dd73736d17b4

PhSt wrote:Any updates on the progress in the Northern Latitudinal Railway? The only information I can find says the railway will be operational by year 2023

If there were problems, you would be sure that news would be reported all over the place.

https://gudok.ru/zdr/181/?ID=1538205

The project is active with some corrections for timelines associated with budget changes related to Covid-19.
This project is not a vanity farce, it is critical to the development of the North Sea Route and the regional
economy, which involves hydrocarbon extraction.

You can bet your last penny it will be finished.

That claim is trivially pure BS. The California high speed rail project that failed recently shows you what the real reason is. Total corruption.
A multi-billion dollar project has a an actual project plan. Such plans are a species of civil engineering and not some whim or guess. They
layout the details of the construction down to the dollar and the time spent by each worker and the cost of every input. They also have
established "error correction" provisions for exogenous factors that induce delays.

The idea that such a large project could just flop with losses in the billions of dollars is pap for morons. We saw with the construction of the
Vostochny cosmodrome what goes on. The contractors try to screw everyone over and run away with the money. That is, there is actual
sabotage of the project to steal the project money. This is were "trampoline man" Rogozin comes in and kicks everyone's asses real hard.
The clown contractor company heads are put under criminal prosecution, the workers get paid and the project is finished in the expected
time framework shifted by the 1.5 years lost thanks to the crooks.

You never see such real fixing of problems in the west. Instead you either see multi-year delays and massive cost overruns or you have the
project being terminated as in California. None of the crooked contractors is ever prosecuted for theft. That would be bad optics for the
squeaky clean image that the west tries to project onto the world.

PhSt wrote:Putin calls for launching construction of Yamal railway

In his 2021 Address to the Federal Assembly, President Vladimir Putin noted that the Government of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area, as well as major Russian companies, could launch the construction of the Northern Latitudinal Railway using the infrastructure loans mechanism. According to the President, the new railway will expedite the exploration of the immensely rich Arctic resources. They have been working on this project for quite a while now, and it is about time it was launched, Putin noted.

The regional Administration’s press service quotes Head of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area Dmitry Artyukhov as saying:

“I am grateful to the President for the high trust he accorded to our region. Yamal is ready to act as a pilot region for the introduction of the new financial mechanism of infrastructure loans. The well-substantiated Northern Latitudinal Railway construction project has tremendous significance for developing the Arctic still further.”

The Head of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area also pointed out that it was the venue for major national industrial projects, and that this implied new oil and gas processing prospects, rather than traditional oil and gas extraction. It is necessary to expand the transport infrastructure in order to make these projects more cost-effective, Artyukhov added.

“The Northern Latitudinal Railway is a key link that will change Arctic logistics and will make it possible to expand the region’s transport potential. It will also reduce the cost of new projects. After joining up with the Bovanenkovo-Sabetta route, this railway will ensure uninterrupted logistic links with the Northern Sea Route and sales markets,” he went on to say.

The goal of the Northern Latitudinal Railway project is to build a mainline that would link the Yamal Peninsula with the Ural region and northwestern Russia. It will also connect the country’s transport system with the Northern Sea Route via the Sabetta port, will include the Obskaya-2, Salekhard, Nadym and other stations and will stretch toward Novy Urengoi via an upgraded existing section. The railway will facilitate the development of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area’s natural resources.

Can anybody post a map of this planned Yamal Railway track?

Form the link above regarding HSR travel times:

St Petersburg – Moscow (target journey time: approximately 2 h 30 min);
Moscow – Nizhny Novgorod (1 h 40 min);
Moscow – Smolensk – Krasnoye (2 h).

That is impressive. Canada is a total joke where the rail link between Toronto and Montreal is under 5 hours on rare occasions but
mostly about 5 hours. The trip takes 5-6 hours by car. The passenger rail shares the track with freight trains.

A 2:30 hour travel time removes the need for air travel completely since passengers spend more time going through security and
waiting.

Russian Railways wanted to supplement BAM and Transsib with a third branch to the Pacific Ocean, 07.07.2021

The possibility of building a new railway line towards the Pacific Ocean for the export of coal is being considered, said Oleg Belozerov, Director General of Russian Railways.

“Colleagues who take out (coal). You just said, you probably meant Elga (the Elga field in Yakutia), where 9-10 trains run daily in terms of volumes. Colleagues suggested building a separate branch in the direction of the Pacific Ocean, provided that they are given the opportunity to export coal, " RIA Novosti quoted him as saying .

As Belozerov emphasized, “it will not even be the BAM or the Trans-Siberian, but one more new line higher” - “the third parallel to the Pacific Ocean”. The initiative will be proposed to the government to "expand these capacities as well."

Let us remind you that BAM (connects Taishet and Sovetskaya Gavan) and the Trans-Siberian Railway are the two main railway exits of Russia to the Pacific Ocean.

On July 7, a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin with members of the government took place. Putin urged to control prices in the construction of transport facilities and to "heat up" the love for banknotes.

Text: Anton Antonov

https://m.vz.ru/news/2021/7/7/1107810.html

What atrocious translation. "Bank notes" likely is corporate bonds instead of government handouts.