The measures required to develop the railway infrastructure of the Eastern operating domain involve eliminating infrastructural constraints on the Baikal-Amur and Trans-Siberian Mainlines in order to transport 66 mln tonnes of additional freight from the fields of the Eastern operating domain. Implementing this project will contribute to the development of the region’s industrial enterprises, create new jobs and establish the necessary economic conditions for the effective and sustainable development of Siberia and the Far East.

Spending as part of the 2015 Investment Programme on work to develop the railway infrastructure of the Eastern operating domain (the Baikal-Amur and Trans-Siberian Mainlines) totalled RUB 64.2 bln.

In accordance with the detailed action plan for the development of the Eastern operating domain approved on 28 December 2015 in Minutes

No. 9 of the Government Transportation Commission, the following was commissioned as part of the project:

• 559.6 km of secondary tracks on the Predlensky-Chudnichny, Chudnichny-Zvezdnaya and Kun-Poni stretches (second and third phases);
• 30.5 km of station tracks and 87 turnouts at the Tuluchi, Gurskoye, Bolshoy Log, Inau, Oune and Ryazanovka stations, the Moscow Komsomolets passing loop and Khuma;
• 312.3 m of the Obluchensky Tunnel (second phase of reconstruction) on the Obluchye-Izvestkovaya section;
• a pedestrian bridge at the Urusha station, four bridges on Zabaykalsk Railway with total length of 88.2 m, three bridges on Far Eastern Railway — 183.2 m and two pipes on East Siberian Railway — 48.1 m;
• a vacation retreat for locomotive crews at the Volochayevka-2 station;
• a first-group operational enterprise with the construction of a vacation retreat for locomotive crews at the Zima station.

A total of 1,217.9 km of tracks were modernised, 1,171.2 km of seamless long-welded rails were laid and 437 turnouts with concrete sleepers were installed.

As part of the development of the Moscow Transport Hub, the Company continued work to rebuild and develop the Moscow Little Ring Railway throughout 2015 by laying the permanent way, installing the contact network, signalling, interlocking and blocking, utilities, the reconstruction and construction of engineering structures, the construction of stops and traction substations as well as the clearing of territories.

The following stations were rebuilt as part of a project to rebuild the Domodedovo (Aviation)-Airport section and build additional main tracks:

• the Aviatsionnaya station with the laying of 7.7 km main and station tracks and the installation of 21 turnouts and 14.4 km of contact network;
• the Kosmos station with the laying of 2.1 km of main and station tracks, the installation of 4 km of contact network, including the construction of two pedestrian bridges, and the reconstruction of two passenger platforms.

Funds allocated in 2015 for the comprehensive reconstruction project of the 81st km-Dmitrov-Iksha-Povarovo section of the Moscow Big Ring Railway were spent on construction work on the Naugolny-Zheltikovo and Zheltikovo-Kostino stretches and the mobilisation of work on the Kostino-Ivantsevo stretch. A total of 21.3 km of utility lines were removed in the reporting year.

As part of a project to build an additional main track on the Moscow-Kryukovo section, work was completed in December 2015 to prepare railway infrastructure on the Moscow-Kryukovo section for the launch of a train traffic schedule that envisages an increase in the number of high-speed Sapsan trains on the Moscow-St Petersburg route and high-speed Lastochka (Desiro RUS) electric trains on the Moscow-Kryukovo-Tver route. A total of 17.1 km of secondary tracks were put into operation.

In addition, work was performed on the Yaroslavl, Gorky and Kursk lines to prepare a construction area, build and rebuild engineering structures, install roadbed and track structure and build platforms and technological buildings.

As part of work to rebuild the Mezhdurechensk-Tayshet section, which aims to support 15 mln tonnes of freight transportation from the Kyzyk-Kuraginko railway line under construction, including the transportation of 12 mln tonnes of coal from the Elegestsky coal field to Far East ports, 3.4 km of new railway tracks were commissioned in 2015 along with 2.4 km of secondary tracks and 4.5 km of electrification, secondary tracks were built on ten stretches, sidings were built and work was carried out to strengthen power supply devices, rebuild the second Dzhebsky Tunnel as well as build and rebuild engineering structures.

The project ‘Comprehensive reconstruction of the M. Gorky-Kotelnikovo-Tikhoretskaya-Krymskaya section with a bypass of the Krasnodar Hub’ is being implemented as part pf the comprehensive project ‘Development and renovation of railway infrastructure at approaches to ports in the Azov and Black Seas’,

The goal of this investment project is to rebuild railway infrastructure to ensure freight delivery to the ports of the Azov-Black Sea Transport Hub (Novorossiysk, Tuapse, Kavkaz, Temryuk and Grushevaya) in the volume planned for the target years (up to 130 train pairs per day) as well as to optimise the operation of the Krasnodar Hub by having freight traffic use the bypass on the Timashevskaya-Krymskaya section.

In 2015, spending on the project ‘Comprehensive reconstruction of the M. Gorky-Kotelnikovo-Tikhoretskaya-Krymskaya section with a bypass of the Krasnodar Hub’ amounted to RUB 2.5 bln, and work was continued on the following stretches: Remontnaya-Gashun, Poroshinskaya, Poltavskaya-Protola and Abganerovo-Gniloaksayskaya (excluded from reconstruction); design and survey work was also conducted for the construction of secondary tracks on the following stretches: Razlivnaya-Peschanokopskaya, Eya-Rovnoye, Rovnoye-Poroshinskaya, Bursak-Vyselki, Vyselki (included in reconstruction)-Kozyrki (excl.) and Protoka-Sebedakhovo; the Tikhoretskaya station was rebuilt; and design documentation was drafted for the construction of the bypass of the Krasnodar Hub with an opinion obtained from the Russian State Expert Evaluation Department.

As regards the project ‘Reconstruction of the Trubnaya-Baskunchak-Aksarayskaya section’, the third phase of the Trubnaya station’s reconstruction was completed in 2015, 11.3 km of station tracks were commissioned on the Zaplavnoye-Trubnaya stretch of Privolzhsyaka Railway and construction work was performed to extend tracks at the Volzhsky station (Trubnaya), build secondary tracks on the Leninsk-Zaplavnoye stretch, build a bridge over the Akhuba River and rebuild the locomotive maintenance centre at the Aksarayskaya station.

The project is being implemented to rebuild the railway infrastructure of the Trubnaya-Aksarayskaya section to ensure freight delivery to ports in the Caspian Sea and the country’s southern regions in the volume planned for the target years (up to 153 train pairs per day).

As part of the project ‘Construction of secondary tracks and the electrification of the Vyborg-Primorsk-Yermilovo section’, which is being implemented to transport a projected 8 mln tonnes of freight to the ports of Primorsk and Vyborg, design documentation was completed in 2015 with favourable opinions received in a state expert evaluation, working documentation was drafted, and construction and installation work was mobilised to ensure the start of operation in 2016.

The project ‘Construction of the Moscow-Kazan High-Speed Railway’ was implemented in accordance with the network schedule for the Moscow-Kazan (HSR-2) High-Speed Railway approved by Chairman of the Russian Government Dmitry Medvedev on 30 September 2013 (No. 5858p-P9) and also on the basis of a memorandum signed on 13 October 2014 by the Ministry of Transportation of the Russian Federation, the National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China, Russian Railways and China Railway on cooperation in high-speed railway transportation.