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Sapsan in the bitter cold weather during the trials

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	Welcome to the Russia Main Page on 4rail.net! Russia is definitely one of the worlds greatest railroading nations with its wast size of country and its past with railroading transporting huge amounts of resources and half finished goods. Lets see some figures: The rail network is one of the largest in the world, almost 90000 km of tracks is covering the area! About 45000 km of this is electricified, mostly with the old 3000V DC system. However this will give way to the common 25kV 50Hz systems, giving chance to utillize more power from the overhead wire. An incredible number of 1,3 million people work for the Russian railways RZD! Russia is building high speed networks in a number of locations sometimes as a shared track for passenger and freight traffic, sometimes as a passenger only high speed track. Russian originating rolling stock is still used widely in a couple dozen countries. While not state of the art, numerous operators find the locomotives like 2TE116, ER3, TEM2, TEM3 or TEP70 good enough for their purpose. And on the other hand Russians themselves are using and have used numerous types built outside the current Russia. Picture: Baltiskii Voksal, the busy Baltian Station, is one of the numerous stations in the huge city of St Petersburg. Unlike the name would suggest, the station currently seems to serve mainly the local traffic. Picture by Hannu peltola 2009. Modernization of the Railroads Since Russia's economy has gained momentum, the modernization of the RZD (generally known as "the Russian Railways") has started, first slowly, but we expect it to gain more speed given a few years. To modernize the rolling stock the RZD has created cooperation in various forms with major western builders like Bombardier, Siemens and Alstom. The mighty RZD alone invested in 2007 for 760 new locomotives! For the year 2008 the target was to have a respectable 940 new locomotives out of shops. Although this was not achieved, the numbers being the same as year before, the production is ramping up with more production lines being built. The investments of the numerous private operators on the RZD networks still add to the number of new locomotives. Since Russia is a wast country rich with natural resources, we have now just seen the beginning. In the coming years there will be numerous ugrades for the system, including super high speed lines, new lines added and we will see more and better connections to the neigbors railnetworks. There will also be additions to the Transsiberian raillinks and even the constant topic on the Bering strait tunnel might pop up again to the discussions, if Americans see they might have use for the Siberian resources. High Speed in Russia Russia is also building an extensive network of high speed networks mostly on the western half of the vast country. Very interesting new trains are added to traffic those lines. These vehicles have to withstand the extreme cold of harsh winters with temperatures down to minus 50 centigrade in the real life everyday use! Read more on the Russian High Speed Page... The Velaro-Rus of Siemens under "Sapsan" name at the use of the RzD is seen here during the cold weather test drive in a very typical Russian technical bridge scenery. A number of Russian trains like Sapsan (the Peregrine Falcon) have imaginative names including Golden Eagle, Alexander Nevski, Repin, Tolstoy, and many others. The Sapsan units will first use speeds of up to 250 km/h (155 mph) which will be raised after the initial phase to 300 km/h (186 mph) where track allows this. Subjects on the Russia High Speed Theme Page of Russia... Super Fast Trains Main page info on the Russian fast trains... Sokol once was to be the pride of Soviet Union SF trains... Subjects for the Rolling Stock The most common Russian locomotives... TEP70 - The Russian Style Heavy Passenger Diesel... 2TE116 - The Russian Heavy Freight Diesel... Latvian Railways 2M62Y number 0093 online in Latvia. Although this unit is in a Baltic country, the 2M62 is one of the symbols for the Russian railways. Numerous locomotives are still in use at the RZD. To the top of the page Sources: General sources, the Net, La Vie du Rail, CIA World Fact Book, Railvolution magazine, Siemens, ...	Created for 4rail.net by John McKey. Pictures by Hannu Luukannel, Hannu Peltola, Ilkka Siissalo, Sanna Siissalo, Stanislav Voronin and John McKey. See also these pages! The Russian Rairoads Main Page is a great place to start browsing this sections! Russian RR Main Page... While Russians have progressed steadily last few years in building the high pseed netqworks the results are starting toi show - here the previous generation high speed train just retired to the railroad museum. Soon the Velaro-Rus "Sapsan" units will replace the ER200 and Chs6 powered trains. Russian High Speed Page... As with any nation, mistakes were made developing the high speed, see our picture story of the famous soviet period prototype high speed train Sokol! Sokol Picture Story... The Russian railways EP-1 electric in Petrozavodsk 500 km northeast of St Petersburg. Picture by Ilkka Siissalo 2008. Russian Rolling Stock Gallery... The Russian Locomotives Page has info on many locomotives used today or in the past. Russian Locomotives Page...

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