By Vestnik Kavkaza
The biggest city of Ingushetia, Nazran, will be connected with Moscow by a new fast premium service train. The agreement in the sphere of passenger transportation was signed yesterday by the head of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and the vice-president of the Russian Railways, the general director if the Federal Passenger Company, Mikhail Akulov.
“It a first project for the Russian Railways, which will be implemented with active participation of Ingushetia. The way we will realize the project in the nearest future will become a pattern for further cooperation with other regions of Russia. “A low periodicity” didn’t encourage attraction of passengers, the republic’s population to railway transportation. We had a task to increase the train’s speed significantly,” Akulov said. “Since January 10th we will reduce time of train movement in the direction Nazran-Moscow by 6 hours. A significant speed-up of the train will be gained by summer 2013 when we plan to make the train from Ingushetia to Moscow take no more than 30 hours on the way; in the opposite direction time will be reduced by 9 hours. Moreover, wagons will be renewed for coming at a new level of service. We will do this together with the republic’s government, experts who will help us to improve the quality of train services.”
“We really change the image of not only the train, but also the republic in general: from logo to internal advertisement,” Yunus-Bek Yevkurov states. “It means new working places for residents of the republic, well-trained personnel of attendants, and reduction of time of transportation. New cars, new people, a restaurant is given to our businessmen who will provide it with halal food. We want to attract people to our train. How can we do it? The most important thing is a quality of service and speed. When we establish these conditions, both the republic and the Russian Railways will benefit. Our benefit is a good image due to such a clean and beautiful train. The most important thing is growing of quality. Everything is for people. Previously one train included 8 cars and moved once in four days, today we have 14 cars and once in two days. Cars are modern, a restaurant car is present.”
Speaking about security measures, Yevkurov emphasized that “it is a general system of transport security. We will provide conditions in our stations. Moreover, initially the train will be accompanied by one of officials – a minister, a deputy minister – for checking the quality of service of passengers. We absolutely trust the Russian Railways, but we would like to see ourselves how will it work.”
The agreement with the Russian Railways should settle the problem of employment in Ingushetia. “About 50 people will be selected for training in the Russian Railways’ colleges. The casting will take place in the republic. A part of them will work in our train, others in other trains. I think we will agree for our young people could study for attendants and work in any trains, not in our direction,” Yevkurov stated.
