Trains will be equated to airplanes – Newspaper Kommersant No. 147 (7348) dated 08/15/2022

The government became interested in the idea of ​​organizing and state support of charter rail transportation. The railway workers themselves are ready to discuss such a project while ensuring “a balanced train schedule.” It is the absence of free or convenient schedule threads that representatives of the expert community call the main flaw in the charter concept as applied to railways. They also note the difficulties in providing such transportation with wagons during the peak season, potential connections with bus routes and the compliance of the conditions of tour packages with the ticket return system established by Russian Railways.

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin will instruct the Ministry of Transport, Russian Railways and Rostourism to study the possibility of expanding the internal charter air program to travel by rail. “The launch of the charter transportation program in the country made it possible to form the same package tours and opportunities to attract people to the most protected places in our country in a completely different way,” Mishustin quotes “Interfax”.— As far as rail transportation is concerned, the idea is very interesting. I will instruct the Minister of Transport, together with JSC Russian Railways and Zarina Valerievna (Doguzova, head of Rostourism.— “b”) to see how we can work out this mechanism.”

Air charter flights within the country are subsidized. As Mikhail Mishustin emphasized, over 1 billion rubles are provided for subsidies in the three-year budget. In July, Rostourism reported that it was proposing to expand the support program, including regular air and rail traffic.

JSC Russian Railways told Kommersant that they are actively involved in the development of a set of measures aimed at reducing the cost of recreation for citizens on the territory of the Russian Federation, “and are ready to substantively discuss the appointment of charter trains within the framework of applications from representatives of the tourist communities and the balance of the train schedule.” This will increase the availability of railway transport for the population of the Russian Federation, including by reducing the cost of tourist products, add to the monopoly. In addition, they note there, it will be possible to implement various targeted programs, for example, providing discounts for tickets under the Family Tourism program.

In the railway industry, a charter in its aviation interpretation, that is, the appointment of a new vehicle on a popular route, is not easy to implement.

As Alexander Ganov, the head of the Grand Service Express (operator of transportation to Crimea), explained, the carrier cannot add a new train outside the schedule approved for the year, “even seeing that demand for some dates is peak”, without adjusting the schedule of other trains (see “Kommersant” dated May 30).

The head of the Passenger Union, Kirill Yankov, agrees that it is more difficult to implement a charter program with regard to rail traffic than in aviation.

He notes that charter rail transportation still exists today – these are trains transporting schoolchildren to vacation spots, but how much this option will be of interest to adult passengers who prefer tourist trains that make several stops is a question.

Also, for charter flights, you need to find wagons, and in the peak season they are all put on the line, and the threads of the schedule.

Railroad workers usually have spare schedule lines for one-time traffic, Mr. Yankov notes, but the best lines are already used for regular routes, for example, the Moscow-Sochi train, which runs a little less than a day, and charter passengers will have to be content with much slower traffic. In addition, the expert adds, there is a problem of organizing connections with buses, which may not be tied to trains.

Subsidizing part of the cost of railway tickets now makes sense, says Mikhail Burmistrov, head of Infoline-Analytics, primarily in light of the growing tourist flow to the south of the Russian Federation in the absence of prospects for the resumption of work at a number of airports this year. Given the recent incident at the airfield in Crimea, it is highly likely that the list of closed airports could be expanded.

As for the purchase of entire trains by tour operators, according to the expert, it is important to note that Russian Railways, unlike air carriers, has an extremely humane ticket return system plus a fairly large share of the subsidized segment (transportation in general and reserved seat cars), so the question arises whether whether tour operators will offer customers similar comfortable conditions.

Natalia Skorlygina