Russian Railways has drawn up a programme to develop the Eastern part of the Trans-Siberian and Baikail-Amur Railways, to overcome infrastructure limitations.
Under the programme, the following core projects are to be carried out from 2011 to 2015:
- Overhauling several track sections
- Rebuilding engineering structures;
- Reconstruction and development of stations and rail hubs;
- Reinforcing power supply equipment;
- Modernising signalling and communications equipment
Total investment in developing the Trans-Siberian is estimated at 193 billion rubles in 2010 prices, net of VAT.
The main obstacle to full-scale implementation of plans to develop and modernise the existing rail network in the Far East and East Siberia is the lack of financing.
Due to the large scale of the tasks involved and the substantial need for investment, Russian Railways considers this work to be ‘impossible without state support’.
The Eastern rail network encompasses the Siberian and Far East Federal Districts, and includes the Far East, Trans-Baikal, Krasnoyarsk, and East Siberian Railways.
This currently represents 21% of the operational track length of the Russian railway network, 31% of network-wide freight turnover, with around 36 million ton/km of freight traffic density per km.
During 2010, the volume of eastbound export freight carried by the network was 95.6 million tons, representing an increase of 20.7% from 2009.
