“The train now standing at platform …”

The much anticipated, much hyped trial run of a train on the Moscow Little Ring Railway (MLRR) didn’t quite go according to plan …

Could it really be happening? At long last, the Moscow Little Ring Railway (MLRR) was opening! The excitement that was being generated, the anticipation, it was almost too much to bear for Moscow’s hard-pressed commuters.

This is a modern, international transportation system that will show Moscow (and the people who run it) in the best possible light – no need for German engineering, or any of those foreign workers (well, okay, so the actual hard work was done by gastarbeiter, but nobody takes any notice of them). A Russian flagship project, which is going to make us all proud – the platform signs are actually going to tell you when the next train is coming, and they’re in English, so no need to keep banging on about “fortress Russia.” This is the future we’ve been promised, and it’s really here.

The PR-shicki couldn’t get the press releases out fast enough, and it seemed that every politician wanted to be photographed on one of those state-of-the-art platforms.

Press release 15:15 16.07.2016

Russian Railways president Oleg Belozerov said that the preparatory work for launching the MLRR was now virtually complete.

“Practically 97% of the work has been finished. On Monday we start the running tests: 50% of the trains will be sent round the ring and we shall be able to see how the technology is working.”

The time to complete the journey round the whole of the MLRR will be approximately 75 minutes. Roman Latypov, deputy investment and strategic development director of the Moscow Underground, said that the exact journey time would only become clear when the tests have been completed.

Press release 14:55 20.07.2016

Testing of services on the MLRR started today. This was announced at a press conference by Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin on a visit to Moscow’s Kiev railway station with Oleg Belozerov, president of Russian Railways.

“The circle of the MLRR passenger ring is now virtually closed, the line has been electrified and is ready for the trains. There is still an enormous amount of work to be done, however, so we shall not be launching passenger services tomorrow, but we have, as it were, crossed the Rubicon. The most difficult part, the technology, is done, which is what we have been aiming for during the last few years.”

The running tests will last until 1 August. These will complete work on the interrelationship between the rolling stock and the overhead wiring, and test the rails and the signalling – i.e. all the systems relating to the vital functions and the safety of the new metro line.

And we’re off!

Train driver Sergei Popov, who has been a senior engine driver on electric trains for six years, posted the information on his Instagram account – a very modern Muscovite – with optimistic photos and commentaries on the beginning of the journey.

“We are getting ready for 05.00, our test run to ‘launch’ services on the MLRR. I shall drive the first train to travel round the ring, an electric train made by the company Regional Express, which will go from Serebryanyi Bor to Andronovka, stopping at every station except Rostokino, Lefortovo, Kanatchikovo and Presnya.”

“Intensive testing of the services on the MLRR has started. Hurray, comrades!”

And then …

“Service on the MLRR started and immediately finished at the first platform of Volokolamskaya. The way we build trains means that the train doesn’t fit through the station and the side of the first carriage is damaged along its whole length.”

What he means is that the platform was built too wide for the train (or the train was built too wide for the platform …) so the side of the train scraped its way through, sort of like the Titanic passing by that iceberg.

The overall project cost is budgeted at 236.9 billion roubles ($3.64 billion): half from the federal budget and a quarter each from Russian Railways and Moscow City. But that’s before they knew they would have to rebuild the platforms …

Alexei Navalny, the opposition activist, spoke for many when he detailed Sergei Popov’s train trip (and if you want to look for Sergei Popov’s Instagram account, no need – it’s been deleted).

“Tens and hundreds of billions of roubles. The kickbacks alone must amount to about 80 billion roubles. And the train doesn’t fit through the station.

The. Trains. And. Platforms. Don’t. Match. Each. Other. It’s not the lights. Not the cable. Not the connectors. Not chargers that don’t match the telephones. It’s not that the driver’s boots don’t fit his foot … but the trains and the platforms.

He has a point.

But, look, let’s not be too disheartened. Let’s just try to remember what it was meant to be like, that vision of the future. And here it is.

We all need to pull together, as Russians, don’t we, to have faith in our government because they’re depending on all of us to vote for them come election time on September 18^th. Just because they can’t match the size of a platform to the width of a train doesn’t mean they can’t run the country, does it?