OREANDA-NEWS. August 26, 2011. The Company has drawn up a programme to develop the eastern parts of the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur Railways which is aimed at eliminating the rail networks infrastructural bottlenecks, reported the press-centre of Russian Railways.

In accordance with the programme, the following main projects will be implemented during the period from 2011 to 2015:

comprehensive reconstruction of the stretch between Karymskaya - Zabaikalsk with the electrification of the stretch between Karymskaya – Borzya

comprehensive reconstruction of 3,230 km of permanent way

reconstruction of permanent structures

reconstruction and development of stations, railway junctions and hubs, including Chita-I and Chita-II, Karymskaya, Belogorsk, Khabarovsk, Ussuriysk and Zabaikalsk

faster construction of energy-saving devices, including the modernisation of 55 traction sub-stations and the reconstruction of the catenary devices on 702 km of track

modernisation of signalling and communications, including equipping permanently operating automatic block signalling along 1,170 km of dual-track, fitting 26 stations with microprocessor equipment centralisation and constructing GSM-standard train, station, repair and operating radio communications

Total investment in the development of the Trans-Siberian Railway is estimated at 193 billion roubles in 2010 prices excluding VAT.

In addition, in order to handle the forecast traffic volumes to the ports of the Vanino- Sovetskaya Gavan hub, a series of measures will have to be implemented to increase substantially the through capacity of the Baikal-Amur Main Line.

These measure include completing the reconstruction of the stretch between Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Sovetskaya Gavan, with the construction of a new Kuznetsovsky Tunnel, the construction of second tracks with total length of 2,700 km and the development of the Vanino- Sovetskaya Gavan rail hub etc.

The main constraint in implementing fully the proposed activities for the development and modernisation of the existing railway network in East Siberia and Russia’s Far East is the lack of financial resources.

Given the scale of the problem and the significant amount of investment required, Russian Railways believes that solving these tasks without the appropriate government support will be impossible.

The eastern part of the rail network embraces Russia’s Siberian and Far Eastern federal districts, which are served by Far Eastern Railways, TransBaikal Railways, Krasnoyarsk Railways and East-Siberian railways.

These networks now account for some 21% of the operational length of railways in the Russian Federation, 31% of the country’s network freight turnover and around 36 million ton-kilometres per kilometre of network capacity.

In 2010, export shipments to Russia’s East was 95.6 million tons, an increase of 20.7% compared with 2009.