First Vice President of JSC Russian Railways Alexander Misharin and President of VR Group Ltd Rolf Jansson Have Discussed Issues of Bilateral Cooperation

On November 8 in St. Petersburg, the annual meeting between JSC Russian Railways and VR Group Ltd (railways of Finland) took place, where issues of Russian-Finnish direct rail service were addressed. The Russian delegation was led by Alexander Misharin, first vice president of JSC Russian Railways, and Rolf Jansson, president of VR Group Ltd in Finland.

The parties discussed joint activities in passenger and freight traffic and summed up the results of interactions between Russian and Finnish railways in 2017.

The growth in passenger rail traffic between the two countries for the first 10 months of 2017 is 23.7% over the same period last year. In total, more than 468 000 passengers were transported, including a record 411 000 passengers on Allegro trains on the St. Petersburg-Helsinki route ( 25%).

The volume of cargo transported for the first 10 months of this year through Russian-Finnish border crossings exceeds the same indicator for 2016 by 8%.

The participants of the meeting also noted the need to reduce the travel time for the Lev Tolstoy train on the Moscow-Helsinki route by resuming in-transit border controls and accelerating movement through the territory of Finland. Measures to improve passenger comfort in Allegro trains planned for 2018-2019 include the modernization of trains.

One significant part of the meeting was the agreement to hold joint training for VR Group Ltd and Russian Railways specialists in 2018 with a special program of the Corporate University of Russian Railways to develop cooperation in the field of training personnel.

Concluding the annual meeting, Mr. Misharin noted the positive results of cooperation with Finnish railways.
“The results of our partnerships include the positive dynamics of freight and passenger traffic, increased volumes of transit traffic from Russia to Europe via Finland, and the launch of container trains along the West-East international transport corridor. The possibilities of organizing cargo transportation along the Finland-Russia-Iran route and Moscow-Helsinki high-speed passenger services are particularly interesting prospects of cooperation,” Mr. Misharin underlined.