Russia To Launch High Speed Railway Between Moscow And Beijing With Travel Time Of 48 Hours

Russia will build a high speed railway line between Moscow and Beijing. This will cut down the travel time to about 48 hours. The existing travel time is seven days, and it will be a revolution when it will be cut to two days.

To achieve this goal, a new rail route will invoke many modifications in the Trans-Siberian route. Accordingly, the Kremlin has awarded the project to China Railway High-speed, or CRH, which is a subsidiary of China Railway, or CR, as a joint-venture with the local firm Uralvagonzavod, reports Romanian website Glasul.

A report published in the Business Insider gave more details. CR is credited with top technical expertise in high speed railways and runs the world's only magnetic levitation train in Shanghai. Earlier, Russia hired the French firm Alstom to work on the rail line between Moscow and Kazan as the first phase of the project. Alstom is rated as one of the a leading high speed train manufacturers with a record in conventional-wheeled high speed trains at a speed of 574 km/hour. But Russia is reportedly miffed with France for its breach of commitment in delivering the promised Mistral ships in November 2014. The Russian government then proceeded to handover the section to CRH, which is now in charge of the whole line.

Fastest Train Service

The total distance between Moscow and Beijing in the direct route will be around 7,000 km, which is three times the longest high speed railway in the world, running between Beijing and Guangzhou. Both Russia and China have accorded top priority to the new rail route. The prime ministers of both countries, Dmitri Medvedev and Li Keqiang, discussed the project in their recent bilateral meetings.

The project is getting good support from many private sector corporations, which include German automobile majors such as Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes. They hope the super fast rail link can fast track the shipping of vehicles from China to Europe. The highlight of the new route will be the inclusion of Kazan, which the old Trans-Siberain route had excluded. Kazan city has become very central to the Russian economy in recent years.

Chinese Funding

The high speed railway link will cost 7 trillion rubles, or $153 billion, half of which, $87.5 billion, is expected to come from Chinese investors. This was stated by Alexander Misharin, head of Russian Railways' subsidiary High-Speed Rail Lines, in an interview with TASS news agency. The trains in the new line will hurtle at an average speed of 400 kilometers per hour, reports Moscow Times.

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