Kazakhstan Temir Zholy National Railways Operator to launch high velocity trains to all of 14 oblast capital cities

Kazakhstan Temir Zholy [National Railways Operator] plans to launch high velocity trains to all oblast capital cities [there are 14 oblasts, or provinces, in Kazakhstan], "Interfax-Kazakhstan" reports, citing Yury Lavriyenko, Advisor to the Company’s President. “The new trains will be running at 160 km per hour (…) To this end, new trains will be launched and efforts will be taken to overhaul the infrastructure (…) The process may take some years”. “If the new plant producing Talgo railway cars is launched in Astana this year, the railway cars may be used for these itineraries”, he said. In a separate statement he said that the Company plans to bring the speed of the current Talgo trains from the current 140 km per hour to 200 km per hour. According to him, there are 5 train sets of cars. Talgo trains were first launched in September 2002 between Astana and Almaty to be further followed by the Almaty – Shymkent route.