High-speed rail connection between Helsinki and St. Petersburg opens in 2010
The high-speed rail link between Helsinki and St. Petersburg is due to come into service in 2010. The new rail link is intended to shorten the journey time at first to three and a half hours and later to three hours, from the current five and a half hours. The fast train has been named Allegro, which means "fast" in Italian.
Fast journey times
The first of the Allegro high-speed trainsets ordered for the service between Helsinki and St Petersburg has arrived in Finland from the Alstom factory in Italy. The three remaining trains will be delivered in Finland by the end of 2010.
A new feature with the Allegro trains is that all border and customs inspections will take place on the moving train in both countries. The Allegro trains are planned to replace the Sibelius and Repin trains that currently operate between St Petersburg and Helsinki at the end of 2010. Starting the Allegro service will make it possible to gradually increase the number of rail services between the two cities. In the initial phase three services will operate in each direction daily, with the number of services later increasing to four per day. Each train will have seven carriages and a total of 350 seats. There will be a restaurant, a business class area, facilities for disabled passengers and designated seats for passengers travelling with pets. Passenger numbers on the Helsinki–St. Petersburg line are expected to triple within five years of the introduction of the high-speed service. The trains are operated by Oy Karelian Trains Ltd, a company jointly owned by the Finnish national rail company VR Ltd and the Russian rail company OAO RZD.
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