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Cargo shipments from Europe to China by Russian high speed railroad to take two days

Russian Railways is working on the concept of a cargo train, which will be capable to carry from 300 to 600 tonnes of cargos at a speed up to 300 km per hour

© Russian Railways

MOSCOW, December 20. /TASS/. Cargo transit shipments from Europe to China by Russian high-speed railway will take two days instead of 60 days by sea, President of Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov said speaking at a meeting of the United Russia faction.

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Russian Railways offers cooperation on high speed railways to Japanese companies

"We plan to reach China via Kazakhstan and to carry special high profit cargos to Europe via Russia, because a ship sails now 60 days, which is a long time. It sails round India and only than arrives to Europe. With a high speed (railway) transport we will be able to deliver goods in two days, and to earn extra money for our country," he said.

Earlier it was reported that Russian Railways is working on the concept of a cargo train, which will be capable to carry from 300 to 600 tonnes of cargos at a speed up to 300 km per hour.

Russian Railways’ main task for 2017 is the launch of the project and the start of the construction of the Moscow-Kazan high speed railway.

The Moscow-Kazan High Speed Railway’s total length will stand at around 770 kilometers. Trains may go at a speed of 350-400 kilometers per hour, and the time en route between the two cities could be 3-3.5 hours against the current 14 hours. According to Belozerov the railroad may be commissioned before 2022-2023.

The total cost of the Moscow-Kazan high-speed railway line is estimated at 1.068 trillion rubles ($16.8 bln). The Moscow-Kazan section may later be extended to China, connecting the two countries across Kazakhstan. According to the Russian Railways, the length of Moscow-Beijing railroad will be 7769 km, travel time - 32.8 hours (four times faster compared to current 130.4 hours). The average annual passenger traffic is estimated at 195 mln people.

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Siemens ready to work with Russian Railways on international projects

China intends to provide 400 bln rubles ($6.5 bln) for the project of Moscow-Kazan high speed railway as a credit for 20 years and more than 100 bln rubles ($1.6 bln) as a contribution to the charter capital of the special project company.

The German Initiative Consortium (includes Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bahn and other companies) is ready to allocate 2.7 bln euros to finance the construction of the high-speed railway line and to attract up to 800 mln euros for the project.

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