Check out the interior of the train swallow

Photo report by Lastchok train

Having shaking off the remnants of sleep, in the early morning last Saturday, the sling and I went out of the entrance and went to the subway with a quick step. The plans to get to the Moscow station in order to get to Novgorod from there on the third in a row of a Russian high -speed train called the Swallow (there is also Sapsan and the Allegro train, a review of the trip on which I already wrote last fall) – only Which by that time I have not yet been able to try.

Photos and a story about how you can travel around Russia with European comfort, you will find under the cut.

The future of Russian railways, which is coming today

Swallow is the domestic name for a typical German electric train produced in Germany by Siemens. In their homeland, such electric trains are very popular, and are used mainly on urban and suburban routes. Within the framework of the contract with Russian Railways, we have been set up with a dozen such compositions over the past couple of years, and then they began to deploy the production of swallows on the basis of the Ural locomotives at the Yekaterinburg station. Today, swallows are already flying along the three routes – from St. Petersburg to Veliky Novgorod and Bologoye, from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod through Vladimir. The train from St. Petersburg to Novgorod costs a little cheaper than 400 rubles ($ 13) and takes 2 hours 10 minutes, in Vladimir from the Russian capital – a little faster, but, nevertheless, more expensive – 1:50 and almost 500 rubles ($ 16).

1. On the platform of the Moscow Station of St. Petersburg in anticipation of the Swallow. A group of Japanese tourists has just arrived by Skory from the capital.

Swallow is submitted to the same special platform as Sapsan. This means that before landing you will have to defend the line for inspection – in a special room blocking the exit to the trains. The procedure, in principle, is simple and fast enough – go through the metal detector (you don’t need to remove anything at the same time) and ride the luggage through the tape with the scanner. However, if we take into account that two passengers are breaking here at the same time – on Sapsan and Swallow with a close to a 100% number of purchased places, the scale of the disaster can be approximately recognized. I will say this if you came later than about 20 minutes before the departure of your train – work with your elbows. If you do not overcome the obstacle out of turn, your tickets cried. When the Sapsan started, we watched the epic picture with the sling – eight people rushed to run after the train, hoping. I won’t know what they were counting on! Did they really think that the Sapsan driver, having seen running people in the rearview mirror, would slow down and open the doors, saying on a speakerphone: We pass, pass, citizens of passengers, do not linger?! Sapsana, which in 3 hours 50 minutes takes from the shores of the Neva to the area of ​​three stations in Moscow?

However, one of the busters really turned on common sense – as soon as the train started moving, he stopped, waving his hands, took out his phone and put it to his ear.

– Hi baby. I'm going home, – he said in the voice of an alpha male, turned around and headed for the exit to the city.

2. Queue at the exit to the platform.

3. Handsome trains of the brand Siemens and headlong rushing guy, late for Sapsan.

4. Swallow turned out to be a very beautiful, polished train with huge panoramic windows. An order of magnitude more beautiful than the trains in Italy.

5. The level of service and comfort is only slightly inferior to the Sapsan, in general – a solid five. All announcements, including information on the route boards, are shown in two languages ​​- Russian and English. You can't think of a better way to encourage foreign tourists to travel outside the borders of St. Petersburg somewhere else and to the provinces, stimulating the development of the economy of the latter!

6. Inside Swallows. The interior is excellent, but the seats are not very comfortable: most of them are located opposite each other (there is nowhere to put your legs), the backs do not recline. However, these inconveniences are leveled by the time of the trip – Swallow goes very quickly, you don't have time to get tired, but your butt gets numb if you don't take a walk while driving 🙂

7. We take our places, and the train will soon start moving. By audio we are greeted in Russian and English, they tell us about the route. Swallow rides very smoothly and quietly. As soon as we left the city limits, the train pressed on and pretty soon rushed at a speed of 160 km / h. The pace is quite brisk.

8. Half an hour later, in the salon of the girl,flight attendantsthe conductors brought a cart with food and drinks. Just like on an airplane. The plane of a low-cost airline a la Ryanair, since everything was paid: coffee – 50 rubles ($1.6), a small cardboard box of Pringles – 70 rubles ($2.3).

9. We rode in the head car (numbers 1, 5, 6, 10) – it's great there, I highly recommend it! Spacious, comfortable and there is a toilet! Unfortunately, this blessing of civilization cannot be found in the rest of the carriages. Saving space, you see 🙂 However, such an omission is more than compensated by the existing bathrooms – in each individual cubicle there is space for seven! In addition, the capsule, futuristic design. Many passengers, judging by the lines that are forming, even endure a couple of hours before departure on purpose in order to visit the toilet in Lastochka 🙂

10.

11. In each car above the windows there are shelves for outerwear and hand luggage. There are also several separate metal bars for large bags. In principle, a common practice for new European trains, but a novelty for domestic ones. Very comfortable!

12. Quite imperceptibly we arrive at Chudovo – a junction station halfway between St. Petersburg and the Bologoe station. (Bolovoye, in turn, is halfway between the Northern Capital and Moscow.) Do not pay attention to the apparent devastation – work is underway on the construction of a new spacious platform, to which high-speed trains will arrive.

13. In Chudovo Swallow costs an average of twenty minutes.Sometimes more, sometimes a little less. The high-speed train is divided here into two parts – the first five cars, how to go from St. Petersburg, after stopping continue moving forward to Bologoye, the last five start in the opposite direction – the railway takes them away from the St. Petersburg branch and takes them to Veliky Novgorod on a narrow single-track in about an hour . Passengers of the train usually come to look at the decoupling of the Swallows.

14. The remaining segment of the journey is only half of how many traveled from St. Petersburg to Chudovo. Before you have time to read a chapter of a book, watch one episode of your favorite series, Soviet high-rise buildings begin to peep out of the green deciduous forest, and then, almost immediately, an elegant, restored building of the Novgorod railway station appears outside the window.

15. Swallow at the station Novgorod on the Volkhov.

A trip on a new high-speed train presented by the Russian Railways left the best impressions. Service, price, travel time, comfort – all these indicators for once turned out to be close to ideal. It is really from Petersburg that there is no better way to get to Novgorod. To Vladimir from Moscow – too. I personally was very glad to learn that Lastochki now serve this route as well. You see, in connection with this, I’m going to visit the city where I lived for seven years and graduated from the university, I’ll finally look at my parents. And then he had not been in those parts for six months – it's scary to even imagine. Although, it must be said, in contrast to the first few months in St. Petersburg, now there is no pull towards Moscow at all. Either it is completely to the south – to the sea and the heat, or to the west, to Europe.

16. Such signs – yes, right in Russian – hang on every Lastochka car.