OREANDA-NEWS. May 18, 2010. The Council for Rail Transport of CIS member states is holding its 52nd plenary meeting in Yurmala in Latvia. Taking part are the managing director of the International Rail Union Jean-Pierre Lubin and the heads of railway administrations in the CIS and Baltic States, Bulgaria and Finland, reported the press-centre of Russian Railways.

Vladimir Yakunin, the President of Russian Railways, addressed the meeting on its opening day and reported on the status of the rail network in the CIS and Baltic states.

"The rail network in the CIS and Baltic states transported 1.855 billion tons of freight in 2009, 14% less than in 2008. However, in general, the volume of freight grew on all the separate networks of the 1520 Space," said Vladimir Yakunin.

According to Yakunin, in 2009, the performance of international passenger services dropped off, with timetable delays of passenger trains arriving from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland. The main reasons for the delays were holdups at border crossings, inadequate supervisory control and various other factors. Vladimir Yakunin reported to the heads of railway administrations on the implementation of projects to develop high-speed domestic and international services.

"In addition to the high-speed Sapsan service between Moscow and St. Petersburg, we are adding another this summer route, this time between Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod. At the moment, we are also working on a high-speed service between Saint-Petersburg and Helsinki-type using the Pendolino train. The work on modernising the infrastructure should be completed by September 2010. We are also developing high-speed passenger services on international routes between Moscow - Minsk - Brest, Moscow – Kiev and Moscow – Crimea," said Vladimir Yakunin. Yakunin also said that one of the priorities in terms of transport cooperation was to form a network of International Transport Corridors (ITCs) as part of the Eurasian transport system. An agreement on the coordinated development of ITCs was signed at the meeting of the Council of CIS Heads of Governments on November 20, 2009 with a view to deepening cooperation between stakeholders.

"In this regard, it seems appropriate to discuss the work of the relevant railway authorities in 2010 in developing the national sections of the existing ITC system (including logistics), as well as the development of transit routes," said Vladimir Yakunin.