MOSCOW, December 13 /TASS/. Moscow will beat the Soviet metro building record with almost 16 kilometers of new rail-track to be laid this year, Andrei Bochkarev, the head of the Moscow city construction department, told TASS on Tuesday.

"We annually increase the number of new metro stations and rail-tracks which are launched in operation in the Moscow metro," he said.

"Eleven kilometers of new lines opened to passengers in 2014. We are going to lay another 16 kilometers this year and break the record of the USSR, which used to build no more than 13 kilometers of new rail-track every year," Bochkarev added.

He said that the main construction and assembly works were nearing completion in the first section of the third interchange circuit from Petrovsky Park to the Delovoy Tsentr (Business center) station where traffic is to start this year.

"We are building the underground lines twice as fast as the Soviet Union did though our capacities are not what the 300-million USSR used to have. The pace of our work is five times higher than in those days. Today, 35 metro stations are simultaneously under construction," Bochkarev went on to say.

"Absolutely different metro construction techniques were used in the old days. It took five years to design one section and another three years to prepare for the construction, which lasted for four years. Our veteran metro builders say that they never worked in three shifts," Bochkarev told TASS.

"Any surprises may occur under the surface. The soil may turn out to be more complicated than expected. There can be 12 various types of rock in one section. It is always hard to guarantee or adjust anything," he noted.

"The construction of a section from Park Pobedy (Viktory Park) to Ramenki of the Kalininsko-Solntsevskaya line is in its final stage," he said.

"We are planning to launch it before the year’s end," Bochkarev concluded.