On April 15 local time, Russian state railway company RZD signed a contract worth 12 billion rubles (about $128 million) with local manufacturer Ural Locomotive. Urals Locomotive will produce two prototypes for Russia's first high-speed railway (Moscow-St. Petersburg high-speed railway), including manufacturing, certification and delivery, until March 2028. This will be the first time that such high-speed rolling stock has been developed and produced in Russia, which has started to develop its own high-speed rail industry after major manufacturers such as Siemens Transportation left the Russian market.

On March 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of Russia's first high-speed railway Moscow-to-St. Petersburg high-speed rail project, the line is about 650 kilometers long, the design speed of 250 kilometers per hour, Urals Locomotive company will produce high-speed rail prototypes for the line. At present, the research and development of the train is being carried out by the Russian Railway Transportation Engineering Center, and the design document will be submitted to Ural Locomotive Company.

The new train, which has a design speed of 360 km and will use the GoA3 autonomous driving system, will have eight trains and will cost an average of 750 million rubles ($8 million) per car. Earlier, the Russian Transport minister reported that the first batch of 28 trains will be purchased for the Mozamba-Saint high-speed railway, valued at 148 billion rubles ($1.6 billion). At the meeting, Ural Locomotive Company announced that a total of 44 trains would be required for the Mozo-San high-speed rail project, while other approved high-speed rail projects such as Moscow-Yekaterinburg, Moscow-Adler and Moscow-Minsk high-speed rail projects would require a total of more than 250 trains. The concession agreement for the Mo-San high-speed rail project will soon be signed with VSM Two Capitals, a subsidiary of Russian State Railways, followed by a series lease delivery contract with the State Transport Leasing Company (GTLC).

At present, the existing railway between Moscow and St. Petersburg runs Siemens Sapsan, which can reach more than 200 kilometers per hour on only some sections, and the overall journey takes about four hours. With the implementation of the new high-speed rail line, travel times are expected to be reduced to less than two and a half hours, with significant improvements in accessibility and efficiency. Editor/Xu Shengpeng