PRESS: Russia cancel Moscow–St Petersburg high-speed railway

MOSCOW, Nov 11 (PRIME) -- The Russian government is discussing a significant delay in construction of a 1.4–1.7 trillion ruble Moscow–St. Petersburg high-speed railway or its cancellation to build a cargo transportation railway instead, Kommersant business daily reported on Thursday.

The railway, to be finished in 2027, was to reduce the travel time between the cities to 2 hours and 15 minutes.

An October 27 protocol of a government meeting chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov includes a ruling to work on re-assessment of the Moscow–St. Petersburg high-speed railway project taking into account the prospects of development of cargo transportation to the seaports of the Northwest Basin, Kommersant reported.

The draft protocol, seen by the business daily, says that the high-speed railway project should be optimized taking into account the largest cargo senders. The government also discusses construction of a cargo transportation railway to ensure cargo carriage to the Northwestern ports, the business daily said.

Russian Railways’ calculations of possible cargo traffic to the ports significantly differ from calculations of stevedore companies. Russian Railways expects the transshipment capacity of Northwestern ports to rise to 220 million tonnes in 2030, while the stevedore and port construction companies expect cargo transportation of 444 million tonnes in the year. Cargo senders do not expect a significant increase of the cargo traffic that would make the cargo railway a necessity, Kommersant reported.

Russian Railways declined to comment.

(70.6950 rubles – U.S. $1)

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