The President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin took part in 68th Session of the General Assembly of the International Union of Railways held in Montreal from 6-9 June 2006.
Yakunin noted that “this session of the General Assembly has become a major event since it took the decision to accept Russian Railways as a fully-fledged member of the International Union of Railways. So 58 years after Russia was involved at the foundation of the IUR and then withdrew, it has once again become a member of this authoritative and professional transportation organisation.

In 2004-5, Russian Railways invested 203 million roubles in the port infrastructure of the distribution and re-shipment complex Lukoil 2 on the island of Vysotsky in Leningrad oblast, building 41 km of connecting routes and Pikhtovaya station and also electrifying parts of the lines.

“Russian Railways has spent over 20 billion roubles on safety in last three years,” said Pyotr Shanaitsa, head of the Traffic Safety and Environment Department during a two-day safety conference which began today.

Summarising the results of 1H2006, Shanaitsa noted that the measures implemented by the Company have improved the quality of the transport process and ensured the stability of rail traffic at a time when the volume of freight and passenger traffic is increasing. Crashes and derailments of passenger trains have been avoided, he said, while defects have been reduced by 7.9% since 2005.

Russian Railways expects state support from Russia’s Investment Fund to build freight branch lines as part of the high-speed passenger train project between St. Petersburg and Helsinki, according to Oleg Morozov, Vice-President of Russian Railways. Morozov rejected press reports that Russian Railways and Lukoil would build and finance the branch lines jointly, emphasising that the cooperation between the two companies in Russia’s North-Western region was on a completely different project, namely developing railway access lines to the distribution and shipping terminal Lukoil 2 on the island of Vysotsky in Leningrad oblast.