Selichino – Sakhalin railway line
| Selichino – Nogliki | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Map of the construction project
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| Gauge : | 1520 mm ( Russian gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Selichino – Sakhalin railway line or the Sakhalin tunnel ( Russian Сахалинский тоннель ) is an unfinished structure that, after its completion, should or should connect the Russian island of Sakhalin with the mainland and cross the Tatar Sound.
history
prehistory
The idea of a tunnel under the Tatarensund arose in the 19th century, but was not tackled at that time for economic reasons. Studies of the feasibility of the project were carried out in the late 1930s. In 1950 Stalin mentioned the idea of a rail link to Sakhalin. We were talking about three possible realizations: a train ferry , a bridge or a tunnel. On May 5, 1950, the Council of Ministers of the USSR decided to build a tunnel and a railway ferry as a replacement solution. The project should be v. a. serve military purposes. So the parts of the Soviet army stationed on the island of Sakhalin should be better connected to the heartland.
construction
The construction of the railway line was entrusted to the Ministry of Interior of the USSR , the work on the tunnel initially to the Ministry of Transport of the USSR . From 1952 the Ministry of the Interior was responsible for the entire project. In order to accelerate the construction, a detailed geological investigation of the route was dispensed with. Also z. T. not impregnated railway sleepers used. The problem was that the railway network on Sakhalin was built in Cape Gauge due to the Japanese occupation of the southern part of the island and its subsequent expansion in 1945 to the northern part . On the island of Sakhalin, the planned route from the Pobedino station (at that time the northern end point of the Cape Gauge Network on Sakhalin; 10 km north of Smirnych ) to Cape Pogibi , where the tunnel was to begin, was to be 327 km long. At Cape Uangi , about 23 km away from the actual route, a railway ferry port was to be built. The length of the tunnel under the Tatarensund should be about 10 km from Cape Pogibi to Cape Lasareva . On the mainland, the tunnel was to be connected to the railway line Komsomolsk am Amur - Sovetskaya Gawan (now part of BAM ) with a new route along the Amur . The project should be completed by the end of 1953 and go into operation at the end of 1955. The annual freight turnover of the route was estimated at 4 million tons.
The construction of the railway lines to the tunnel was mainly carried out by Gulag prisoners. The main camps were on Sakhalin Island near Tymovskoye and on the mainland near De-Kastri . In early 1953, more than 27,000 people were working to complete the project. On the island in particular, the work was made more difficult by the fact that there was virtually no infrastructure and the appropriate technology. Because of the tight schedule, conditions in the camps were worse than usual and did not even meet the state requirements for prison camps.
After Stalin's death, the work was stopped. The exact reasons for this are not known. Some sources say that the amnesty issued on the occasion of Stalin's death resulted in the release of so many prisoners that there were not enough workers left.
Completed parts of the project
In the course of the project, a total of 120 km of railway line was built on the mainland along the right bank of the Amur from Selichino station to Chorny Mys station. This was later subordinated to the Ministry of Forestry of the USSR (Minlesprom) and used for timber transport, but has since been shut down and largely dismantled.
To build the ferry port on the mainland, dams were built that are still in place today. A shaft for the tunnel was dug at Cape Lasarev and an artificial island was created about 1.6 km from the shore. No new lines were built on Sakhalin. Only preliminary work was done, which was later used to build a dirt road from Nysch to Pogibi .
Since 1973 Sakhalin has been connected to the mainland by the Vanino - Kholmsk railway ferry .
outlook
Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union , the idea of a tunnel under the Tatar Sound lives on. The need for a permanent connection between Sakhalin and mainland Russia has been expressed several times by representatives of the Russian Railways and politicians. In November 2008, Dmitry Medvedev ( President of Russia from 2008 to 2012) said he was in favor of crossing the Tatar Sound.
According to plans from the 2000s, the new line to be built through the tunnel at Nogliki , which was connected to the Sakhalin railway network in 1979 , which was narrow-gauge until 2019.
The work to convert the route network to the gauge of 1,520 mm, which is customary in Russia, has largely been completed. On July 18, 2019, the first long-distance train reached Nogliki on the diverted route from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk .
According to optimistic estimates, a new bridge to be built could be inaugurated between 2030 and 2035. Critical voices also consider the construction of a bridge to be realistic.
Web links
- Information on the website of the Giprostroimost Institute (Russian)
- Photo report about the building remains on the website of the Giprostroimost Institute (Russian)
- AI Kostanow: Samaja vostochnaja doroga Rossii: Otscherki istorii Sachalinskoi schelesnoi dorogi (Russian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ PrimaMedia : Президент России хочет остров Сахалин соединить с материком (Russian)
- ^ Trans-Europe Express LLC: The gauge change on Sakhalin Island's railway line. July 23, 2019, accessed February 2, 2020 .
- ↑ RT DE Productions GmbH: Moscow wants to build a bridge between Sakhalin Island and the Russian mainland. December 9, 2019, accessed February 3, 2020 .
- ↑ owc publisher of Foreign Trade GmbH: Experts criticize infrastructure plans of the Russian government. June 13, 2019, accessed February 3, 2020 .