page_title: Saint Petersburg–Moscow railway
section_title: Operations
hierarchical_section_title: Saint Petersburg–Moscow railway / Operations
caption_attribution_description: English: Siemens Velaro RUS (St.Petersburg, Moscow Terminus). Русский: Макет головного вагона Siemens Velaro RUS (Санкт-Петербург, Московский вокзал).
context_page_description: The Saint Petersburg to Moscow railway runs for 649.7 kilometers through four oblasts: Leningrad, Novgorod, Tver and Moscow. It is a major traffic artery in the north-west region of Russia, operated by the October Railway subdivision of Russian Railways.
context_section_description: The maximum speed is 250 km/h (155 mph), however this speed is allowed only on distance of less than 10 km of tracks. A maximum speed of 220 km is permitted on 110 km of tracks; the rest of the route allows a maximum speed of 200 km/h. The fastest train taking 3 hours and 30 minutes (which gives an average speed of 185 km/h). The Siemens Velaro RUS train, also known as Sapsan, has operated on this line since 2009, running below their maximum speed of (300 km/h (186 mph)) because of difficulties upgrading all the track. Russian Railways spent nearly $1 billion on eight trains. In 2019, a third order of €1.1 billion for 13 more trains of the same model was signed.
  Since 1931 the famous Krasnaya Strela ("Red Arrow") train has left Moscow at 23:55 daily, arriving in St Petersburg at 07:55 the next morning, and vice versa.
  The railway is relatively congested, which means that only a few high speed trains can run each day. There are plans to build a parallel high-speed railway allowing up to 400 km/h, at an estimated cost of 696 bn roubles with an estimated completion in 2018.
caption: Siemens Velaro RUS in waiting hall of Moskovsky terminal in St. Petersburg
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