OREANDA-NEWS. August 19, 2013. International inter-ministerial meetings on optimising procedures for state border and customs control at the Belarusian-Polish railway border have taken place in Warsaw and Minsk.

The meetings were attended by Mikhail Akulov, Vice-President of Russian Railways and CEO of the Federal Passenger Company and Janusz Malinowski, Chairman of the Board of JSC PKP Intercity, as well as by representatives from the Polish and Belarusian state border and customs authorities and the PatentesTalgo company.

The Federal Passenger Company presented development plans for international passenger traffic until 2015 which take into account the launch of fundamentally new high-tech rolling stock produced by the PatentesTalgo company in Spain onto the Moscow – Berlin route.

The main advantage of this train is its ability to switch automatically between the 1520 mm broad gauge track and the 1435 mm narrow gauge line without changing the bogies, thus allowing it to cross the Belarusian-Polish border without stopping and considerably reducing the train’s journey time between Russia and the countries of Europe.

In order to reduce the waiting time at the border, the Federal Passenger Company proposed carrying out the procedures necessary when crossing the state border between Belarus and Poland while the train is still in motion.

The government authorities from the Republic of Poland and Belarus responsible for border and customs control support the commissioning of the new train.

The foreign partners involved assured the Russian, Belarusian and Polish railway administrators that they were ready to make all the necessary preparations to ensure that the state border and customs controls could be carried out on a moving train.