High speed trains for Russian railways

In Russia, the construction of high-speed railways (ysokoskorostnye magistrali, VSM) is in the pipeline. This project has been discussed for a good twenty years, with the main candidate being the connection between Moskva and St. Peterburg, but later proposals for routes to Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, etc., also began to appear. However, all projects were suspended at that time. 

In the end, however, the first high-speed line is to be built between Moskva and St. Peterburg, for which the Russian president issued a decree in March this year. The Ministry of Finance has estimated the cost at 1.8 trillion roubles (approx. 17.6 billion EUR). Work is expected to start as early as this September and the line should be completed in 2030, a highly ambitious deadline given that it is to be 679 km long. The government expects an average of around 39,000 people a year to work on the construction of this first VSM.

It will be dedicated exclusively to passenger traffic, with a headway of up to 15 minutes, and will reduce the journey time between the two terminus cities to 2 hours 15 minutes, with a travel time of 39 minutes from Moscow to Tver. It is this section, about 100 km long, that is to be completed first and is also intended to serve as a testing ground for high-speed trains. 

The pilot HSTs

The issue of vehicles has also been the subject of many negotiations and agreements in the past, and cooperation between Russian industry and foreign countries has been considered, with the main question being whether it would be Western countries (the greatest hope was for Siemens, which counted on UL's involvement) or China. Now Russia has decided to leave the development and production of high-speed trains to domestic industry.

Sinara and its Uralskie lokomotivy (UL) factory presented a 1:1 scale mock-up of a high-speed train at the Innoprom exhibition held in Ekaterinburg from 8 to 11 July 2024. These are to be eight-car units with a top operating speed of 360 km/h (with the possibility of extending to 16 cars) and with a transport capacity of up to 460 passengers in four classes.

The mockup in question is a result of the fact that in April 2024, RZD signed a contract with UL for the development, approval and delivery of two pilot trains. The value of the contract is 12 billion roubles (about 472 million EUR). The train is to be equipped with a computer vision system, anti-collision system, autonomous GoA3 control, and suchlike. Currently, two new production halls with a total area of 60,000 m² and a testing room are being built at the UL factory, and a chain of subcontractors for these high-speed trains is being created; there was no mention of the participation of Chinese industry, although "cooperation with friendly countries is not excluded".

Production is scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2026, more than 150 component suppliers have already been selected for the project, and the units are due to be ready by the end of March 2028. It will be interesting to see how the coincidence of train production and the construction of the new HSL can be reconciled, and whether, for example, the Sapsans, diverted from the current Moskva - St. Peterburg line, which in turn will gain more capacity for freight traffic, will initially provide services on it.

The batch of HSTs

On 30 August 2024, a contract for 41 high-speed trains from UL was signed. Following the signing of the contract, another, different mock-up of the new HST, named Bely krechet (the White Gyrfalcon, Falco rusticolus), was presented at the Manezh exhibition centre in Moscow at an event called "Stantsia Manezh. Moskovsky transport 2030".

The other parties to the contract are GTLK (Gosudarstvennaya transportnaya lizingovaya kompania, the State Transport Leasing Company, the largest in Russia that finances the acquisition of transport vehicles) and the concession company VSM Dve stolitsy (Two Capitals; this commonly used term reflects the fact that in the past St. Peterburg was the capital of Russia). The value of the contract has not been disclosed. All the trains are to be delivered by 2030 and "will be leased for 20 years", which means that the operator will be VSM Dve stolitsy.

UL will provide capacity at its Verkhnyaya Pyshma works (north of Ekaterinburg) for annual production of up to 300 cars, but this includes cars for Finist EMUs or other types of units. TMH will also participate in the production of the new HSTs by supplying various components from its subsidiaries.

Greater production capacity appears to be needed, as current government plans call for high-speed rail to run to Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan in the future, and from there to cities in the Urals, Siberia and the Far East - exactly the idea that, with connections to the HSL network in China, was discussed years ago; the terms for the Moskva - Vladivostok VSM speak of 2050. If plans for other VSMs like Moskva - Adler or Moskva - Minsk (Belarus) come to fruition, there is talk of the need for up to 250 - 290 HSTs. So we can only wait and see how the Russian high speed train and high speed line projects develop.