Talgo train. Photo courtesy of railways.kz
Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev has instructed to launch a new high-velocity railway link between Astana and Almaty across Balkhash Lake, a Tengrinews.kz journalist reports, citing President Nazarbayev as saying at a sitting in his Akorda Residence held to tally 2012 results. “We are getting down to constructing a new passenger railway link between Astana [the capital city] and Almaty [the biggest city in Kazakhstan]. The railway link will rely on Talgo trains. If the travel time is cut down to 4-5 hours, it will be a great result. I set the task to start developing the project right away. The money will be there to finance the project. It is important the link is across Balkhash Lake. This will boost tourism in the area and the distance between Astana and Almaty will be 300-400 km shorter. It is a large-scaled project. I think the work could be completed in 5-6 years’ time”, President said."
Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev has instructed to launch a new high-velocity railway link between Astana and Almaty across Balkhash Lake, a Tengrinews.kz journalist reports, citing President Nazarbayev as saying at a sitting in his Akorda Residence held to tally 2012 results.
“We are getting down to constructing a new passenger railway link between Astana [the capital city] and Almaty [the biggest city in Kazakhstan]. The railway link will rely on Talgo trains. If the travel time is cut down to 4-5 hours, it will be a great result. I set the task to start developing the project right away. The money will be there to finance the project. It is important the link is across Balkhash Lake. This will boost tourism in the area and the distance between Astana and Almaty will be 300-400 km shorter. It is a large-scaled project. I think the work could be completed in 5-6 years’ time”, President said."