Sleeping Compartments to Appear in Russian High-Speed Sapsan Trains

Anton Petrov, Head of the Directorate of High-Speed Communications of Russian Railways, spoke about an update that will affect Russian trains. Sleeping compartments will appear in all Russian high-speed Sapsan trains.

Experimental sleeping berths, two in each electric train, are already available in four Sapsan trains. At the initiative of Russian Railways, they were organized by the German manufacturer of these trains, Siemens, in the latest batch of electric trains.

As Petrov noted in an interview with RIA "Novosti", the shelves for the compartments will be of domestic production - Russian Railways is capable of high-quality retrofitting of the interiors of the carriages. Russian Railways plans to have two such berths in each train for now.

Earlier it became known that in 2027, Russian Railways will have a train capable of accelerating to 400 km/h. It will be possible to get from Moscow to St. Petersburg in 2 hours on it. Nevertheless, the Sapsan trains will also be modernized. The plans include adding lighting, replacing the seats in the first and business classes, improving the geometry of the back of the seats in the economy class, installing sockets everywhere, changing the interior of the bistro car, and equipping special support seats in the vestibule areas for the convenience of passengers.

Other updates in the form of additional services for Sapsan passengers - a hairdresser, manicure salons, sports equipment - will not appear. But there will be technological changes: Russian Railways is preparing for boarding electric trains using biometrics and a QR code in a joint project with the Ministry of Digital Development.

Currently, payment for travel using a passenger's biometric data can be made in the Moscow Metro, and it will start working in six more cities in the country by 2025. This same practice, but with identity verification using QR codes on conductors' mobile devices, is being adopted by Russian Railways. First, it will be used on Lastochka trains, then on Sapsan trains.

It was also previously announced that Russian Railways will improve the transportation of animals after the recent incident with the cat Tviks. On the Yekaterinburg - St. Petersburg train, the cat, having escaped from its carrier, was mistakenly taken for a stray and released onto the platform by the conductor at a station in Kirov. Later, volunteers found the cat dead. After public outcry, it was decided to change the procedure for transporting animals. Software is being developed that will display all information about the animal being transported on the train on the conductor's mobile device.