A high-speed rail link between Helsinki and St. Petersburg is to come into service in the autumn of 2010. The new rail link, named Allegro, is intended to shorten the journey time between Helsinki and St. Petersburg at first to three and a half hours and later to three hours, down from the current five and a half hours.
In comparison, the flight to the neighbouring metropolis takes four to five hours, calculated from home in Finland to the office in St. Petersburg. Director Mireta Humalamäki, of insurance company If, intends to make her business trips entirely by train in the future, if the new Allegro trains turn out to be reliable, reaching their destination on time. Another If director Lisbeth Norrgård-Eklund also plans to start using the trains, at least partly. - Unless there are similar problems to those we had earlier with the Pendolino,- she adds.
The Pendolinos are Finnish Railways' (VR) Italian-built high-speed tilting trains, which have had some serious reliability issues as they came to terms with the Finnish winter.
