Russian trains will be exact replicas of the one President Vladimir Putin took this morning to go to Schleswig from Hamburg, he added.
First ten trains will link Moscow and St. Petersburg, with a speed up to 350 km/hr. The next batch, for the Moscow-Helsinki route, will be slower, 250 to 300 kilometers an hour. Speed lines will connect Russian megalopolises-Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and certain others, thus to stretch throughout the vast country. There are prospects for a Moscow-Kiev route.
When asked why the Russian Railways has chosen Siemens for partner, Mr. Fadeyev explained it was the only of the world's three largest companies to accept Russia's contract terms. Russia will fully receive technologies, and a complete set of related documents. Production will base in Russia, as well. Thus, the initial sample will come from the Moscow Locomotive Works.
"Will Russian railways cope with the trains?" a reporter asked Igor Levitin, Russia's Transport Minister. "No problem," he replied. "Moscow-St. Petersburg trains are making 200 kilometers an hour even now."
The Russian, German, Lithuanian and Polish Transport Ministers will gather for conference in Kaliningrad in February, Mr. Levitin went on. The ministers will discuss how to settle freight transport from the Baltic exclave to the Russian mainland and back-a major issue now that the Kaliningrad Region is within the Schengen zone after a recent European Union enlargement.
As he came back to the latest Russian-German understandings, Igor Levitin highlighted upcoming German participation in Moscow-St. Petersburg highway construction.
