Pleasant waiting: passengers want to be provided with food when trains are delayed
Russians will be able to receive free meals, accommodation and other services if their train was delayed due to UAV attacks, sabotage, bad weather and other reasons. Such a bill, developed by LDPR deputies, will be submitted to the State Duma on October 17. United Russia stressed that the initiative imposes additional costs on railway companies, so it will not be accepted until it is agreed with the business. According to experts, the bill may also lead to higher ticket prices.
What measures have been developed in the State Duma to support passengers?
In Russia, they want to fix in law the list of services that a railway carrier must provide to Russians if trains do not leave on time. Such a bill will be submitted to the State Duma on October 17. Parliamentarians receive a lot of complaints from passengers that Russian Railways does not provide social and household services when trains are delayed, LDPR leader Leonid Slutsky told Izvestia. He recalled the most high-profile case in September of this year, when about 50 trains were delayed for four hours in the Rostov region due to falling UAV debris.
— There are still no regulations in the law that would guarantee comfortable conditions for passengers of late trains, although air carriers already have all this. Therefore, we propose to consolidate at the legislative level the list of mandatory services that the carrier is obliged to provide to passengers in case of train delays. At the same time, special care should be given to the most vulnerable categories of citizens — disabled people, passengers with children, etc. All of them should have guaranteed access to communications, food, drinks, as well as temporary accommodation and luggage storage," the LDPR chairman said.
The bill proposes to amend the charter of the railway transport of the Russian Federation, adding a list of services there by analogy with those that already exist in the aviation industry. Thus, if the train is delayed due to bad weather, repairs, security threats or other technical reasons, passengers will be able to receive a range of services for free. The initiative may enter into force on March 1, 2026, the explanatory note says.
Passengers will be able to receive soft drinks if they wait for more than three hours, and hot meals if the train is delayed for more than four hours. Russians are offered to be fed every six hours during the day and every eight hours at night. Finally, when the delay is more than eight hours during the day and more than six hours at night, passengers should be provided with a hotel with free delivery to and from the train station, as well as luggage storage.
Now every Russian is already entitled to compensation if the flight is delayed by more than an hour. On regular trains (reserved seats, compartments, SV), payments amount to 3% of the ticket price for each full hour of delay (but not more than the full ticket price). On high—speed trips such as Sapsan or Lastochka, you can get a refund of 25% of the ticket price if the train is 30-60 minutes late, 50% for delays from 61 minutes to two hours, and a full refund for delays of more than two hours.
At the same time, the passenger will not be able to receive compensation if the flight was delayed due to force majeure. These include natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and military operations, so it will most likely not be possible to collect a fine for delayed trains due to UAV attacks or sabotage.
Will railway companies be able to provide services to passengers
Train delays have become more frequent recently. Drone attacks and sabotage inside the country are causing Russians to face problems getting from one city to another. For example, on October 13, the St. Petersburg–Sevastopol train was delayed by 2.5 hours due to an oil depot fire in Feodosia. In September, due to the demolition of rails in the Orel region, there was also a massive delay in flights. In August, 11 passenger trains traveling to and from Crimea were delayed for between one and a half and six hours.
Meanwhile, there are other reasons: in May 2025, seven flights were delayed due to bad weather and fallen trees on the way to the Moscow region, and in February last year, 10 passenger trains could not leave on time due to a storm warning in the Rostov region.
Thus, the problem with train delays does exist, but the approach proposed by the deputies creates a number of difficulties. First of all, if the train stops en route in an empty field or is delayed from stations where there is no suitable infrastructure, it will be physically impossible for passengers to provide services from the list: to feed and take them to a hotel, Ilya Zotov, chairman of the All-Russian Association of Passengers, Deputy Chairman of the Public Council under the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, said in a conversation with Izvestia.
— The details are very important here. If we are talking about providing meals and accommodation at the airport, it means that there will most likely be hotels in the air harbor area. With railway trains, everything is more complicated: he can stop at any point, in the same forest, where there are no hotels and from where there is no logistics of motor transport," the expert notes.
As a backup option, you can keep water and hot food on the train if you stop on the way. However, the most convenient option may be an insurance payment system, when funds are transferred to a passenger waiting for a late train, with which he can independently check into a hotel or buy food, Sergey Romashkin, vice president of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR), told Izvestia.
— The initiative is interesting, but here we need to work out a fast, clear, transparent, non-bureaucratic mechanism similar to insurance payments. The train was delayed — the money drips to the tourist automatically on the card. He decides for himself whether to sit at the station and wait for the 10 o'clock flight or go to the city, look for a free hotel or cafe," the expert explained.
According to him, most of the complaints received by ATOR were related to the fact that trains stopped in the middle of the route, for example, in the Voronezh or Belgorod regions. A system of reasonable compensation of funds would be the most convenient way out of the situation, Ilya Zotov agrees.
— It is necessary to fix the cost of food and accommodation, and the passenger can come to the company with checks and reimburse the expenses incurred, — the social activist explained.
At the same time, in any case, such an initiative will require additional costs for Russian Railways, which will lead to an increase in ticket prices, which have already increased recently, Zotov believes. Izvestia sent a request to Russian Railways to clarify the company's position. Due to the fact that the bill involves new expenses for businesses, it is necessary to make a clear financial assessment, without which the State Duma will not approve the initiative, Natalia Kostenko, Deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Tourism (United Russia), told Izvestia.
— If the bill has no financial justification, then it is unlikely to be approved. We currently have special regulations that must take into account, among other things, additional business costs, so everything needs to be clearly coordinated and worked out as part of a legislative initiative," the parliamentarian explained.
This issue lies primarily in the interests of the Ministry of Transport, she added. Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation to clarify the position of the department on this issue.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation previously stated that they also advocate providing passengers with free water and food during flight delays.
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