OREANDA-NEWS. At the XI St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Vadim Moroz, First Vice-President of Russian Railways, presented the Company’s project to run high-speed trains between St. Petersburg and Moscow to the Investment Committee for the Selection of Projects for State Support.

“This route will allow us to create a competitive, safe and environmental connection which will reduce the travel time to 2 hours 20 minutes and meet the growing demand for a passenger link between Russian and Finland. We expect demand to reach 480,000 passengers per annum by 2015”.

“It will also meet the growing volume of rail freight destined for the Russian ports of the Gulf of Finland”, said Morozov.

The reconstruction of the line between St. Petersburg and Buslovskaya will handle trains travelling at up to 200 kph, while the construction of a new line between Petyayarvi and Kamenogorsk will allow us to switch freight traffic to the line from Ruchi to Vyborg via Petyayarvi and Kamenogorsk.

The cost of the project at 2007 prices is 59,8 billion roubles, of which 22,2 billion roubles will be spent on high-speed trains and 37,6 billion roubles on switching freight traffic.

According to Morozov, if the Investment Fund contributes 35% of the cost of the project (21 billion roubles) and Russian Railways 65% (39 billion roubles), both the Fund and the Company will recover their outlay within 10 years.