OREANDA-NEWS  The Moscow - St. Petersburg high-speed railway is under launch; contracts have been signed for the supply of more than 40 trains that will run at speeds up to 400 km/h, Maxim Liksutov, Deputy Mayor of the capital for Transport and Industry, told the Moscow 24 TV channel.

"It is in the active launch stage. To date, contracts have been signed for the supply of 43 trains that will run at speeds up to 400 km/h. They will be produced in Russia, and the entire component base will also be Russian. The requirements for the train are the most stringent, the Moscow government took part in the formation of the technical specifications for the future train," he said.

According to him, the industry will receive a huge boost with the advent of the most modern technologies in the field of high-speed rail transport.

"The fact that the project was given such a start by the president of our country is only the first step towards the development of high-speed traffic along other corridors, of which five have already been identified, and which our president has approved. I am sure that the first HSR will be followed by the second, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth," Liksutov added.

Earlier, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that the government of the capital will allocate 34.1 billion rubles for the construction of the Moscow-St. Petersburg high-speed railway. The implementation of the investment project of the first Moscow - St. Petersburg HSR provides for the construction of a railway line with a length of almost 680 km and the launch of traffic along it at a speed of 200 to 400 km/h. Thus, the travel time between Moscow and St. Petersburg will be reduced to 2 hours and 15 minutes.