DB Schenker completes first shipment of Russian high-speed trains

DB Schenker completes first shipment of Russian high-speed trains DB Schenker said Thursday it has completed the first shipment of eight high-speed trains for Russian Railways.
   The initial train was transported from the rail ferry port in Sassnitz/Mukran on the island of R'gen off the North German coast. The train ferry Vilnius will carry the train initially to Baltisk, where it will be ferried to the Russian Baltic Sea port of Ust Luga. The ferry journey will take 50 hours, followed by 150-kilometer overland transit to St. Petersburg.
   The contract to ship the trains across the Baltic Sea was placed by Siemens AG, the manufacturer of the first fleet of Russian high-speed trains.
   “This special order is a great boost for our ferry service to the East and for the economic development of the train ferry port in Sassnitz/Mukran,” said Norbert Bensel, chief executive officer of DB Schenker, in a statement.
   Sassnitz/Mukran is the largest train ferry port in Germany and is the only one in Central Europe with tracks in the Russian 1,520-millimeter broad gauge. The ferry is also fitted out with such broad-gauge tracks, DB Schenker said.
      Due to the dimensions of the train and its wide cars, the eight trains will be transported by road as oversized loads from the Siemens plant in Krefeld-Uerdingen to Sassnitz/Mukran by heavy-duty vehicle. In the ferry port, the cars will be unloaded by crane onto the tracks, where they will be separated into two sections — each section consisting of five cars — and stowed side by side in the ferry hold in order to distribute the weight of 625 metric tons evenly in the ship.
   The trains are scheduled to go into service on the line between Moscow and St. Petersburg at the end of 2009 and operate at speeds of up to 250 kilometers per hour.