Lautiosaari – Elijärvi railway line
| Lautiosaari – Elijärvi | |||||||||||||||||||||
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 Lautiosaari junction
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| Route length: | 7.5 km | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1524 mm ( Russian gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Top speed: | 50 km / h | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The Lautiosaari – Elijärvi railway is a freight - only railway line in northern Finland . It is a branch line of the Oulu – Tornio railway line . The line opened on October 31, 1985. Traffic has been suspended since 2007.
traffic
The freight trains on the route served exclusively to transport chromite between the Elijärvi mine and the Tornio steelworks , which is part of the Outokumpu group and is located on the Röyttä peninsula. The traffic was handled with swap bodies, which were brought to the relevant processing points in the steelworks by truck.
The traffic on the route ended at the end of 2005. The reason was that VR Cargo (now VR Transpoint ) lost a tender for the transport of ore loads to a trucking company . For this reason, train traffic has been idle since 2006. On November 7, 2011, the contract with the forwarding company was extended to the end of 2019.
530,000 tons of ore are transported annually. In 2011, the number of drivers was increased from 24 to 42 in order to operate the existing eight articulated lorries around the clock over a distance of around 40 kilometers.
A further expansion of the mine capacity to 1,300,000 tons is planned for the future. In a preliminary investigation carried out in 2009, the following transport routes were considered, with a further increase in production to around 2,700,000 tons per year being taken into account:
- The enriched ore is transported to Tornio in specially built trucks with a load of around 45 tons. The transport can also be done by specially designed wagons.
- The expansion of production would result in an estimated 90 truckloads per day of trucking from the mine for processing.
- If transported by rail, four freight trains would run to the mine every day.
Planning and condition
Before the transport changeover, VR had planned to upgrade the route for higher axle loads in 2006.
The route maintenance was set on June 3, 2007. The Lautiosaari junction was closed and the points expanded. The only level crossing at Elijärvi was demolished in 2008 and the road renewed at this point.
Except for these interruptions, the entire route is still available (as of October 2017).
The main signals for the route in Lautiosaari are still illuminated. Removal from the security system would be associated with extensive costs.
Web links
- Antti Rantakolmonen: Elijärven kaivosrata. Perta-Aavan tasoristeyksen katsastus. In: aunut.org. Retrieved February 23, 2018 (Finnish).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Rautatietavaraliikenne. In: resiinalehti.fi. Retrieved February 23, 2018 (Finnish, Resiina 4/2017).
- ↑ FINNISH RAILWAY STATISTICS 2009. (PDF) In: rhk-fi-bin.directo.fi. August 2009, p. 9 , accessed on February 24, 2018 (English).
- ↑ Elijärven kaivosradan tasoristeys. In: junalauta.net. March 23, 2006, accessed February 23, 2018 (Finnish).
- ↑ Lautiosaari (Elijärven kaivosradan vaihde) -Elijärvi. In: vaunut.org. July 25, 2012, accessed February 23, 2018 (Finnish).
- ↑ 325 § LAUSUNNON ANTAMINEN ARVIOINTISELOSTUKSESTA KOSKIEN OUTOKUMPU CHROME OY: N KEMIN KAIVOKSEN LAAJENNUSTA. In: keminmaa.fi. August 25, 2009, accessed February 23, 2018 (Finnish).
- ↑ Kromirata = Ruosterata. In: junalauta.net. October 1, 2017, accessed February 23, 2018 (Finnish).