Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin had to come to terms with the fact that trains maintenance will cost more that the trains themselves.
Photo: Dmitry Kostyukov
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Russian Railways, Siemens Sign ˆ300 Mln Maintenance Deal
Russian Railways and Siemens have signed a maintenance contract for high-speed trains following a year of difficult negotiations. The Russians will have to pay ˆ300 million euros for the maintenance of eight Velaro RUS trains that they are buying from the German company, which is more than the price of the trains themselves.
Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin and his counterpart from Siemens Transportation Systems Group Hans Schabert have signed the ˆ300 million deal which would see Siemens responsible for the complete maintenance of eight Velaro RUS high-speed trains for a period of 30 years. “This contract was born in difficult discussions,” Vladimir Yakunin said after the signing ceremony on Friday. “But the main thing is that the both parties have achieved their goals.”
The 250-meter Velaro RUS train can carry 600 passengers and move at the speed of up to 330 km/hr. The first Velaro RUS train is run on the Moscow-St. Petersburg route in 2008.
The deal supplements a ˆ276 million contract on the delivery of eight Velaro RUS trains. Siemens is going to reap about ˆ618 million from the project. Russian President Vladimir Putin has already dubbed the deal “Russian investments in German economy”. Among other things, Russian Railways will have to spend as much as ˆ1.3 billon to reconstruct the Oktyabrskaya Railway between Russia’s two biggest cities.
The deal is extremely lucrative for Siemens, and not quite so for Russian Railways. But the Russian company simply did not have the choice but to buy a maintenance package together with trains, experts say.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 23, 2007
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