Conference Discusses Project Of Creating Japan-russia-britain Railway Corridor

The creation of the East-West railway corridor was a priority theme at the international scientific and practical conference titled "Transport Problems of the Far East" which completed its work on Thursday in Vladivostok (the Russian Far East). As the RIA Novosti correspondent reports, the project of building the Japan-Russia-Britain transcontinental railway has both supporters and opponents. The conference participants, mainly representatives of big transport enterprises and scientific-research institutions of Russia, China and Japan, believe that the construction of the Japan-Russia-Britain railway will considerably speed up the deliveries of cargos and ensure a stable trade between the East and the West. However, in the opinion of Anatoly Stepanets, academician of the Russian Transport Academy, the re-orientation of the cargo stream will inflict a serious strike at the ship companies and sea ports in the south of the Russian Far East. According to the scientist's estimates, the sea freight traffic in the east of Russia will decrease by a third, as minimum. As was pointed out at the conference, the Russian Ministry of Railways has already started actively realizing this gigantic project. Minister of Railways Nikolai Aksyonenko said in public that the construction of a railway bridge across the Tatar Strait would start in October, this year. It will connect the Sakhalin Island and the mainland. Speaking at the conference, the Japanese scientists said that in the Tokyo business quarters there are very many supporters of the construction of a tunnel under the La Perouse Strait. The underground tunnel will connect the Japanese island of Hokkaido and the Russian island of Sakhalin.