32,000 people are working on Russia’s Moscow–St Petersburg high-speed rail project

Russia’s Transport Ministry issued a progress update on the Moscow–St Petersburg high-speed railway project on 23 October. It said 32,000 people are currently involved in construction and preparatory work.

The same statement put the number of specialist machines at about 11,000. These are reported current workforce and equipment figures for the project, not measures of the percentage of work completed.

A testing centre for high-speed trains has entered service, according to the ministry. The release describes it as operational for testing activities related to the rolling stock.

At the Ural Locomotives plant in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, production of the first and second trains is proceeding at the same time. Some cars have reached final assembly, with cable routes complete and interior equipment and passenger-saloon components being installed.

The bodies of series cars for the third train are being welded and prepared for painting. The ministry said the work was proceeding on schedule but did not provide delivery dates or changes to the project budget.

The update describes construction and manufacturing progress; it does not mean the railway has opened or passenger services have begun. The announcement contains no independent completion audit, total cost or commissioning schedule.

The latest update describes three separate parts of the delivery chain: civil construction and site preparation, a dedicated test centre, and trainset manufacture. The ministry’s count of 32,000 people and about 11,000 units of special machinery covers people and equipment engaged in construction and preparation; it does not say that all are employed directly by the ministry or provide a breakdown by route section.

At the Verkhnyaya Pyshma plant, the first and second trainsets are being produced at the same time. The ministry said some cars had reached final assembly, with cable routes installed and internal equipment and passenger-compartment fittings being added. In parallel, the body shop was welding and preparing for paint the serial bodies of a third train. These production stages are evidence of manufacturing progress, not completed trains or a commissioning date.

Opening the test centre establishes a facility for high-speed train testing, but the 23 October release does not describe its test programme, certification steps or operating results. It also gives no train delivery date, route opening date or updated project cost. Those omissions matter because manufacturing milestones and a centre entering service are different from the completed integration of trains, track, signalling and operating systems.

The project concerns a dedicated high-speed passenger railway between Moscow and St Petersburg. Earlier Ministry of Transport material described the route as about 679 kilometres and the trains as designed for speeds of around 400 kilometres per hour, with a planned completion target of 2028. Those figures are project parameters published earlier; the October update itself did not revise them or confirm that the target remains unchanged.

The ministry’s meeting announcement is therefore a progress snapshot rather than a revised commissioning forecast. Its most concrete current indicators are staffing and machinery across construction and preparation, the test centre’s entry into operation and the assembly stages of three trainsets. The source does not publish physical completion percentages or explain how the reported workforce and machinery are distributed among the project’s stages.