Russian Railways Public Company is not going to finance a rail welding production facility project the rails for which are to be manufactured at Mechel Group’s Chelyabinsk Iron & Steel Works (currently under construction), the company’s head Vladimir Yakunin told reporters in Chelyabinsk.

‘We have been considering our need for producing 100-meter rails for a long time. No such rails are manufactured at our facilities, especially no rails of such quality. Under our standards, a continuous welded rail requires 800-meter rails. The enterprise that is being put up next to the plant will weld the rails into strips of this length. This comes at no cost for Russian Railways, since these are the private investors who are putting their money in,’ he said.

According to the head of Russian Railways, the construction of the rail welding facility is already under way, Interfax reports.