The new "Aurora"

On 6 June 2024, at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, a mock-up of the interior of the new carriage for "Aurora" train to be operated by FPK, was presented at the RZD stand. 

The cars will be built by TMH at its Tver works. The rake will consist of 15 double-deck cars: SV cars (i. e. with the separate compartments), seated carriages with a standard and more comfortable layout, a service carriage with spaces for disabled persons, and a bistro car. The total capacity of the train, which will run two pairs daily, will be 1,240 passengers. The new "Aurora" is scheduled to start operation in December 2024. It will be a "firmenny poyezd", i. e. a special high quality train of RZD (FPK), and will offer passengers a press, multimedia portal and refreshments on board.

A train with this name has already been running between both cities since 1963, and in its time it was exceptional for its high comfort, with speeds of up to 180 km/h, and the route from Moskva to Leningrad it covered in 4 hours and 59 minutes. The first "Aurora" ran on the route until 2010.

FPK together with TMH are now implementing the project of the renewed "Aurora". The reason is the growing transport demand and increasing passenger comfort requirements. For this reason, an individual interior design is being developed which will differ from the existing cars. The new carriages will be supplied by TVZ, and two prototypes of seated carriages with new bogies, 20 tonnes axle-load and disc brake are currently being built. These prototypes will be used for approval tests.

On 7 June, again at the aforementioned Economic Forum, TMH and PFK signed a five-year memorandum of cooperation to assess the future need for passenger cars with a top speed of 200 km/h and, eventually, to start their development and production. This will depend on the possible creating of a network of such trains and the growth in transport demand.

TMH already has experience in supplying cars for locomotive-hauled trains for speeds of up to 200 km/h: in 2001 - 06 these were cars for the "Nevsky Ekspress" (Models 61-4170, 61-4188, 61-4189, 61-4192). Even before that, in 1972 - 79, the then Kalininsky vagonostroyitelny zavod (now TVZ) built Type RT200 cars, which ran on the "Russkaya Troika". The cars that TVZ currently produces for FPK have a top speed of 160 km/h.