Russia: The Moscow Metro reached a supplementary agreement with TMH that expands the contract they entered into in 2020. The Russian capital is expecting more than 500 cars in 2024–2025 in addition to 1,360 cars (170 train sets) to be supplied in 2020–2023.
Since 2024, TMH will deliver upgraded rolling stock of the new 81-775/776/777 series. The technical specifications require integration of head-up displays for drivers, new interior and more comfort for people with reduced mobility when entering or exiting head cars.
The manufacturer, Metrowagonmash, part of TMH, is capable of building large batches of metro cars, 650 yearly. New trains are designated even for the Big Circle Line (BCL). Earlier the government of Moscow emphasized BCL’s rolling stock would be highly automated, so new trains were expected to ensure fully unattended operation (GoA4 level). As TMH told the Railway Equipment Journal in 2020, Moskva-2020 was ready for GoA3 level automation (driverless operation with a driver acting in the event of disruption).
Under the contract of 2020, Metrowagonmash has built more than 900 cars by today. 896 of them can be used in various Moskva-2020 train sets, and 24 are for the new series of train sets. Today seven-car electric trains are already in service on the Circle Line, and eight-car trains on the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya and Big Circle lines.
The first two metro trains of the new series 81-775/776/777 were put into operation on 6 October 2020. The 81-775 cars are head motor cars, 81-776 cars are middle motor cars and 81-777 cars are middle trailing cars. The new series is an upgraded 81-765/766/767 Moskva platform (in operation since 2017).
Traction batteries to move the train up to 6 km in case of power failure are a key innovation of Moskva-2020. The train has a design speed of 90 km/h with maximum acceleration 1.3 m/s2. The car service life is 31 years. A train of eight cars is stated to accommodate 1,500 passengers.
Interior of Moskva-2020 metro train. Source: Metrowagonmash
Moskva-2020 is notable for its automatic double doors with anti-trap protection. Door glass area reached 82% – with only 47% in older series – and that is a record for the trains of the Moscow Metro. The construction of doors changed too: now trains have sliding doors instead of sliding plug ones. Entrance is 15% wider reaching 1.6 m. The manufacturer reports that now the number of passengers passing the doors in both directions is 10% higher and the number of passengers entering in the first 20 seconds of boarding grew by about 20%. Inter-car gangways are 57% wider too. Among other improvements, Moskva-2022 has a new design of the body, the front of the head car, interior, climate control, etc.
Wide automatic doors of Moskva-2020 metro train. Source: Dmitry Ozyorsky/transphoto.org
Driver’s cab of Moskva-2020 metro train. Source: Metrowagonmash
In the face of sanctions, TMH, as quoted by RIAMO in October, communicated re-engineering of automatic couplers and braking systems for metro cars to launch their manufacture. According to the publication, the company mentioned the sanctions affected shipment of motors, gearboxes, yaw dampers, door operating gears, and main controllers. With required tests and trial runs, most lacking components would be replaced with Russian equipment, as communicated TMH.
