OREANDA-NEWS. July 19, 2010. At Russian-German intergovernmental consultations in Yekaterinburg today, in the presence of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin signed a range of documents with Siemens CEO Peter Loscher, aimed at expanding cooperation in the modernization of rolling stock, reported the press-centre of Russian Railways.

The signing of a memorandum on creating a joint venture to produce, supply and service modern Russian electric trains represents an important step in implementing the countries’ joint project to localize production of electric trains on the Siemens technology platform.

The document stipulates the development, by the start of autumn 2010, of specific action plans to create a joint venture involving Siemens and Aeroexpress, and also to localize production of Desiro Rus electric trains. The partners in the joint venture will take a decision on where in Russia to locate the production base by the end of summer 2010.

Russian Railways will order from this joint venture 1,200 Desiro Rus-series electric train carriages. A supply contract will be signed in spring 2011. Desiro Rus electric trains are planned to be used for suburban passenger transport in Russia’s major cities.

The second document is a memorandum of understanding on joint implementation of projects to modernize railway yards. The partners intend to create a joint venture which will work on modernizing sorting humps at stations on the Russian rail network. In total, at least 22 stations (with 34 sorting humps) are to be modernized up to 2026. Also, from the fifth year of the joint venture’s operations, the parties plan to gradually increase the localization level of production to 80%.

Commenting on the signed documents,Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin said: "Russian Railways pays particular attention to developing cooperation with our German partners in rail transport. The joint projects we have carried out are of a strategic nature in both their depth and scale. Our interaction is multi-faceted, encompassing freight and passenger transport, international logistics, the joint creation of innovative, cutting-edge technologies in machine-building, staff training, and other areas. We are satisfied with the effective and diverse cooperation between Russian Railways and our German partners, and are ready to step up coordinated activities to boost our presence on the market of transport and logistics services and machine-building production in Europe and Asia."