Allegro to speed Helsinki-St Petersburg rail travel
HELSINKI – The high-speed rail link between Helsinki and St. Petersburg has been given the name Allegro.
The livery for the high-speed trains on this route will consist of a white background with blue, red and silver stripes. The trains are due to come into service in 2010.
This high-speed rail link is intended to shorten the journey time between Helsinki and St. Petersburg at first to three and a half hours and later to three hours, down from the current five and a half hours.
Passenger numbers on the Helsinki–St. Petersburg line are expected to triple within five years of the introduction of the high-speed service.
In 2007, the Helsinki–St. Petersburg line carried some 230,000 passengers.
Last autumn the train operating company Oy Karelian Trains Ltd placed an order for four high-speed trains.
According to the company’s plans, three services will operate in each direction daily in the initial phase, with the number of services later increasing to four per day in each direction.
The new trains will have a “dual voltage†system to enable them to operate on both the Finnish and Russian rail networks. The top speed of the trains will be 220 km (137 miles) per hour.
Each train will have seven carriages and a total of 350 seats. There will be a restaurant, business class area, facilities for disabled passengers and designated seats for passengers travelling with pets.
All border-crossing formalities are also being relocated onto the moving trains.
Ian Jarrett
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