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The President gave a speech at the plenary session of the 4^th Railway Congress. Via videoconference, he talked to representatives from Russian Railways’ enterprises and social facilities and took part in opening two railway facilities: the Kerak Tunnel, the longest tunnel on the Trans-Baikal Railway, and the Vykhodnoi-Lavna Railway in the Murmansk Region.

The event was followed by a ceremony to present state awards to Russian Railways' workers.

The 4^th Railway Congress was attended by about 2,000 railway workers and representatives of government bodies, businesses, trade unions and veteran organisations. The key theme of the congress was railway development to ensure Russia’s socio-economic interests.

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Remarks at the plenary session of the 4^th Railway Congress

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Friends!

I welcome participants and guests to the Fourth Railway Congress and, of course, greetings to workers of this, without exaggeration, essential strategic industry that makes a huge contribution to the development of Russia, our regions and to the strengthening of national sovereignty.

The Russian railway network has the highest usage rate in the world, ensuring 87 percent of the country’s freight operations and about one-third of passenger traffic. More than one billion passengers travel with the Russian railways every year. These are impressive statistics.

The industry’s leader, Russian Railways, is one of the biggest customers for the Russian machine-engineering industry, industrial production in general, the construction industry and professional training; this company is a source of stable long-term orders for many sectors of the economy, science and tech businesses. In the past 20 years, Russian Railways has purchased over 9,000 Russian locomotives; more than 700 mainline locomotives have entered service.

Today, over 1.3 million freight wagons operate on Russian railways, which is more than ever in Russian history. Russia’s fleet is one of the youngest in the world, with trains having an average age of 13 years. In the next three or four years, we plan to complete the upgrade programme for the passenger train fleet.

I would like to repeat that Russian Railways’ development policy stimulates key innovative sectors of the economy. Needless to say, we must continue exploring new types of equipment and other products. I will talk more about new innovative development areas at Russian Railways in a bit. Of course, including locomotives for ultra-heavy trains that are particularly in demand in the Eastern Operating Domain, I do not need to tell this audience how important this is. Of course, it is necessary to develop infrastructure for high-speed passenger railways. High-speed operations are the future of the Russian railway industry. This means a new quality of services and additional opportunities for millions of people, the country’s economy, businesses, tourism and our commercial ties, as well as for the development of the regions and cities.

A large-scale modernisation of the Central Transport Hub is underway. We are also implementing other complex projects, such as the Moscow Central Diametres, which will form the basis for connecting Moscow and the Moscow, Yaroslavl, Tver, Kaluga, Vladimir and other regions in Central Russia with modern and comfortable high-speed routes.

I would like to note that passenger transport is an attractive showcase for the new image of the Russian railway network and Russian railway transport in general. Railway stations and station buildings are being upgraded. Many of these railway station buildings are architectural landmarks and our heritage. It is important that renovation is carried out very carefully. They are turned into modern complexes without losing their inimitable historical appearance.

It is not surprising that railway tourism has become an attractive and promising sector. When Mr Belozerov said this at the beginning of this project, it sounded strange, but there is nothing strange about it. It has turned out that railway tourism is a wonderful and popular product. Over 50 such routes run across Karelia, the Urals, Central Russia and many other regions, taking tourists to national parks, nature landmarks like Lake Baikal and other unique territories in Russia.

Passenger volumes to Crimea are growing consistently, and the connectivity of Donbass and Novorossiya is being improved. I would like to point out that our railways have learned to deal with the increased load in the southern and southwestern directions, reliably ensuring the transport of military equipment and raw materials, as well as the delivery of component parts to our defence enterprises.

Last year, it was Russian Railways and other Russian carriers that quickly adjusted their logistics strategies and directed additional commodity flows to the Far East, to our ports in the north and south of the country. They have made their contribution, which I can describe as immense, to repelling the sanctions attacks on our country and creating conditions for economic revival and growth, and for delivering our products to promising markets around the world.

Overall, both passenger and freight trains are running on schedule in Russia, partly thanks to the modernisation of the railway management system and the implementation of modern and more effective methods of train operation, including virtual coupling technology. You are expanding the use of this interesting innovation quite successfully, thanks to your skills and your professionals, of course.

Today, Russia’s railways form a powerful and high-technology system, serving as a vital driver for economic development by fostering innovation and digital tools with a focus on domestic solutions and the use of Russian software products.

By the way, let me add that newly introduced services have made ticket office queues at railway stations a thing of the past. Today, online systems account for three quarters of fare sales, either through websites or mobile applications.

Russian Railways is also our leading company in terms of developing quantum communications. For Russia, this is one of those cross-cutting technologies where it has a substantial edge in terms of research and practical application, as we master more domestic competences in this sector. The effort to build a backbone quantum network is already underway. It will elevate communications to a new level in terms of both quality and security, while improving data transfer speeds. This means greater connectivity for the country, which is an absolute priority for Russia, the biggest country in the world, laying the groundwork for developing sectors and services as part of the big data economy – the economy of the future.

By the end of this year, the quantum network is expected to exceed a distance of 3,200 kilometres, connecting Moscow, St Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan and other major Russian cities.

This network development effort will gather even more momentum moving forward. Next year, it is expected to reach 7,000 kilometres and reach Sochi and Yekaterinburg. By the end of this decade, the quantum infrastructure will fully meet the country’s needs in terms of its geographical reach, offering Russia a place among the top nations in this sector. I do hope that Russian Railways, as the main company tasked with this strategic undertaking, will fully deliver on this far-reaching agenda.

Friends,

All the projects and achievements I mentioned result from the hard dedicated work you – hundreds of thousands of people – have been carrying out as part of your daily routines. This includes train drivers and passenger carriage attendants, traffic dispatchers and repair workers, trackmen, engineers and transport construction workers, as well as many other specialists.

I would like to thank all those working in the Russian railway industry as well as its veterans for your sense of unity, responsibility, and for your focus on delivering on your objectives even in the most challenging and at times extreme conditions.

Railway workers have demonstrated their dedication and excellent discipline not only in performing their professional duties, but in other areas too. Let me say that I regularly talk to officers in charge of units taking part in the special military operation, and they have told me many times, and I hear from them a lot, that whenever railway workers are doing their military service in their detachments, this guarantees orderly operation and all the battle missions are performed with great precision and care. Of course, they have also mentioned the valour and courage of these fighters.

These qualities and professional experience are passed down through the generations in our railway industry. Your efforts have always been respected and admired. We will certainly reinforce the personnel potential in this industry and will improve working conditions on our railways and the social protection of your personnel and veteran workers. Of course, there is still a lot to do. The industry’s management and the Government will certainly work with company management to deal with these issues.

I would like to remind everyone that Russian Railways is the largest corporate employer in Russia. The head of your trade union mentioned this just now. Railways have a pivotal role in the lives of cities and towns in many regions of Russia, especially in Siberia and the Far East, because they not only provide jobs but also help deal with other essential social matters.

In this connection, I would like to thank all the leaders of the former Ministry of Railways and the Russian Railways company established under it, its divisions and, of course, the railway trade union, which I mentioned just now, for preserving the broad social infrastructure in difficult times and for taking care of the people, your employees and their families.

This social infrastructure is being improved now. These investments and this concern for your employees are really contributing to the industry’s future, enhancing its competitiveness and attractiveness to new personnel and for young people.

In 2020, the Corporate University of Russian Railways was declared the best in the world. It is especially important that the company is developing a comprehensive education system, helping people on a path from school to modern jobs. You give special attention to schoolchildren and the development of their talents at your vocational centres at schools and colleges. There are 26 children’s railway lines and six “Quantoriums” established with them, which specialise in IT and robotics. These initiatives are very commendable.

Friends,

Many generations of Russia’s railway personnel have created a powerful infrastructure, an industrial and technological basis that helps us progress, striving for better results and setting new, ambitious goals.

Today, Russia is implementing a challenging development agenda, strengthening its sovereignty and creating new opportunities for economic growth, for expanding interregional ties, developing a global competitive market of transport services and building new transport corridors.

The upcoming decade will become a decade of big construction and major projects for our country, including in the railway industry. These will be projects of great significance not only for Russia but for all of Eurasia.

As you know, we are expanding the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway, modernising other mainlines and seaport access roads, including the Azov and Black Sea basin and the Caspian Sea basin. At the same time, we are beginning large-scale construction of a high-speed railway network.

As a first step, this route will reduce the travel time between the two largest metropolitan areas, Moscow and St Petersburg, drastically. Subsequently, these railways will connect Moscow with Minsk in fraternal Belarus, as well as Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Yekaterinburg and Rostov-on-Don, and it will ensure best accessibility of Black Sea resorts for our citizens. I want to emphasise: eventually, we will certainly extend these lines to Lugansk and Donetsk.

It is planned so that the high-speed railway network will cover territories where more than 111 million people live, which is 80 percent of the country’s population.

Today I will talk about plans that make it possible to strengthen the transport and logistics framework of all of Eurasia and diversify freight traffic thanks to more effective, reliable and safe delivery.

In the European part of Russia, we are developing the North-South corridor that will connect the ports in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean to Russian ports on the Baltic coast as well as the Murmansk Transport Hub, one of our essential backbone hubs in the Arctic whose capacity will certainly be increased.

Seamless, as the experts say, railway operation will be facilitated throughout the route, from Murmansk to Bandar Abbas in Iran, using the broad gauge, 1,520 mm, track. Cargo shipping by rail from Murmansk to Mumbai will take around 15 days. Transit schedules will be reduced by four times compared to the current routes.

Another corridor will run from the north to the south via the Urals and Siberia. The key projects on this route are upgrading the central section of the Trans-Siberian Railway, including the West Siberian Railway, through the Omsk, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo and Tomsk regions and the Altai Territory; also, construction of the Northern Latitudinal Railway with prospective access to the ports in Yamal, Taymyr and the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory; and building the new North Siberian Railway from the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area to its junction with the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

Taken together, these projects will not only ease the traffic load on the Trans-Siberian Railway by rerouting some freight traffic such as coal, but they will also create a powerful logistics cluster in the Urals and Siberia and boost the development of the entire macro-region.

At the same time, we are working with our foreign partners to develop southbound railway corridors from Central Siberia – to China, Mongolia, and Indian and Pacific ports.

Finally, we are planning another corridor from the Arctic to the south of the Far East. These lines are being developed, including a branch from the Baikal-Amur Mainline to Yakutia, bridges across the Lena and Amur rivers, and also the Pacific Railway.

The three North-South corridors that I mentioned, one in the European part of Russia, another in Siberia and another in the Far East, will pave the way to integrating and connecting our railway and transport routes with logistics hubs in the south and southeast of Eurasia.

Importantly, these projects will create a huge domain for the long-term development of entire industries and vast territories in the Russian Federation, and will produce a significant and positive effect on our country and for our citizens.

Friends,

Railways are the most important part of Russia's transport system. Steady and reliable operation in the domestic market as well as in international transport largely determines the dynamics of the country’s development, the quality of the national economy, and its global competitiveness.

We will unquestionably continue to strengthen the railway industry, increase the carrying capacity of the railways, and we also need to consider ways to achieve faster travel, to improve the quality and convenience of passenger service as well as the transit of goods; all these objectives are going to be met. Taking into account the new challenges, we will build up the capabilities of domestic industry, technology, industry-based science and education.

We will act in a coordinated and cooperative manner, combining the efforts of the state, the regions, businesses, and your excellent teams – millions of extremely talented people, true professionals in their respective fields, committed to achieving high quality results and ready to work – I have no doubt about this. And we will certainly achieve every goal in the interests of Russia.

Thank you very much.