A new high speed train service is now in operation between Moscow and St. Petersburg. The inaugural journey by the Sapsan high speed service left Moscow on December 17^th. One of the passengers on board was Vladimir Yakunin the Russian Railways President. He announced that the new trains were not simply trains with carriages but a new type of travel altogether, a new type of technology.

The new trains can reach a top speed of 250 km per hour which means that they are able to travel the 645 km between Moscow and St. Petersburg in around 3 hours and 45 minutes. It is estimated that with the inclusion of the journey to and from the airport making the trip by air would take around five hours according to RDZ the company in charge of the project.

A certification of safety was given to the high speed service on December 14^th and three trains a day will operate the new service. The twenty-one on board staff have all received extensive training both in Russia and Germany based on that which is given to staff on Aeroflot aircraft. 18,700 tickets have so far been snapped up by those eager to experience the new high speed trains before the end of January. Due to the size and width of the new trains they have had to be shipped overland by road from the port of Sassnitz. The trains were originally built by Siemens at the company’s Krefeld plant in Germany.