Russia: At the end of December, the first five-car train entered service on a route between Ekaterinburg and the town of Kamensk-Uralsky. Under the current contract, Russian Railways is to receive 22 such trains, 12 in 2023 and 10 this year.
Initially, the new electric trains run on several suburban lines in the Sverdlovsk region, and from January they have started passenger service on the lines from Ekaterinburg to the towns of Karpinsk and Verkhoturye.
The ES104 EMUs are now in controlled operation, organised with the participation of their manufacturer, Ural Locomotives, a subsidiary of Sinara-Transport Machines, STM, Russia. According to the press office of the Sverdlovsk Railway, a branch of Russian Railways, the rolling stock has to be adjusted at the depot regularly. For its part, STM stresses that the controlled operation of the new trains will provide experience in the operation of components that have never before been used in electric trains. The Russian news agency RIA Novosti quotes a representative of STM as saying: “We are cooperating with component manufacturers and specialists from Russian Railways”.
The ES104 has been developed as an alternative to the Lastochka EMUs previously produced by Ural Locomotives in partnership with Siemens Mobility. The new train was given the name Finist (meaning Falcon in English) in late December following a vote on the Russian Railways website. The train was certified in November 2023 and is declared to have 99% Russian-made components. It was decided to approve the production of 60 trains and monitor their operation over a 12-month period. In cooperation with Russian Railways, STM says it is developing an after-sales mechanism that will make component manufacturers jointly responsible for the technical condition of their products.
