OREANDA-NEWS. On December 14, 2007 Vladimir Yakunin, President of Russian Railways, addressed the Russian government and spoke about the prospects for rail transport in the Khabarovsk Territory and the adjacent regions, reported the press-centre of Russian Railways.

Rail transport plays a major role in the social and economic development of Russia’s Far East region, and according to Yakunin, Russian Railways plans to invest about 113 billion roubles in developing railway infrastructure there by 2015, with 50 billion roubles to reconstruct the Trans-Siberian Main Line and 63 billion roubles to upgrade BAM – the Baikal-Amur Main Line.

In 2009, the Company will open the second line on the bridge across the River Amur and then reconstruct the tunnel under the Amur.

A further project in the Far East will be the development of the section between Komsomolsk-on-the-Amur and the port of Soviet Gavan.

Vladimir Yakunin said that Russian Railways had also developed a project to reconstruct the section between Oune and Vystokogornaya, which includes the construction of a new Kuznetsovsky Tunnel. The total cost of the project at current prices including VAT is 59,9 billion roubles, with the state expected to commit 17,6 billion roubles.

In accordance with the Strategy for the Development of Rail Transport in the Russian Federation until 2030, over the long term, the BAM (Baikal-Amur Main Line) will specialise in carrying heavy-duty trains, while the Trans-Siberian will focus on specialised container trains and passenger traffic.

Since the basic transport arteries connecting the Far East with the Urals and European Russia are the Trans-Siberian and Baykal-Amur Main Lines, Russian Railways has incorporated an large increase in rail capacity in all development programmes, including the Strategy for the Development of Rail Transport in the Russian Federation until 2030, the Strategic Programme for the Development of BAM (Baykal-Amur Trunk Line) until 2020 and all the intermediate-term investment programmes, which include the building of new lines to mineral deposits and the modernisation and reconstruction of existing main lines to provide transport for the commodity cargoes expected in the future.