OREANDA-NEWS. On September 28, 2007 October Railways has begun work on the second phase of work to build an express link between Saint Petersburg and Helsinki, reported the press-centre of Russian Railways.

On completion of the project, the PENDOLINO express passenger train will cross the Finnish border 1.5 hours after leaving Saint Petersburg. Two stops are planned, one at Vyborg (5 minutes) and one at Buslovskaya (9 minutes), including border and customs control.

4.,2 billion roubles will be spent on the project this year, with a total cost for the express route from Saint Petersburg to Buslovskaya and then to the Finno-Russian border amounting to 65 billion roubles as of 2007.

The Russian government is providing 35% of the project’s cost (21,5 billion roubles) from January 2008.

Oktober Railways spent over 2 billion roubles on the project in the first eight months of 2008.
ALSTOM will be supplying two PENDOLINO express trains in 2009.