Moscow airport gets rail link to city

Published time: 11 Jun, 2008 01:15Edited time: 24 Dec, 2009 22:14

Passengers flying into Moscow’s main international airport will no longer have to queue for expensive taxis or wait for buses to take them to the city centre. Sheremetyevo finally has an express rail link to the city centre. It's the third major city airp

The new rail link from the Savyolovsky railway station to Sheremetyevo airport opened on Tuesday.

Passengers pay $US 7 dollars for a ticket that takes them from the airport to the city centre in exactly 35 minutes. For many business travellers, it’s a dream come true. For others, the chance to beat Moscow’s notorious traffic will come as a relief.

Russia’s Transport Ministry says drivers in the capital should notice the difference immediately, as the railway starts to relieve pressure on overcrowded roads.

State-run Russian railways invested more than $US 200 million in the project, an amount matched by private investors. The public-private partnership is thought to be the biggest of its kind so far in Russia.

Still to come is the Moscow transport hub, connecting all the airports by a circular railway.

Also in the pipeline is a new Moscow-St Petersburg highway.