Kazakhstan Temir Zholy to launch two high-speed routes this year

Two high-speed railroad routes will be launched this year, KazTAG reports citing Vice-President of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (national railroad company) Askhat Akchurin. “We are launching two high-speed routes these year. Almaty-Petropavlovsk route will open in the beginning of July and Astana-Aktobe high-speed train will start cruising in fall,” Akchurin said at the meeting of the economic policy council of Nur Otan party called Functioning of innovative clusters and development of their infrastructure on May 17. According to Vice-President of the company, the average train speed will make 140 km/h. Special railways are being prepared for such speeds. “We need to prepare the railways. That’s what we are doing right now,” he expleined. According to Akchurin, wagons for the high-speed routs are manufactures at Tulpar-Talgo factory in Astana. Kazakhstan Temir Zholy has also developed a program to increase the speed of the passenger trains to up to 200 km/h by 2015. Currently Talgo high-speed train cruising between Astana and Almaty has the average speed of 100 km/h.