Petersburg-Warsaw Railway

Petersburg-Warsaw Railway
Warsaw train station in St. Petersburg, early 20th century
Route length:	1333 km
Gauge :	( Saint Petersburg - Czarna Białostocka ) 1520 mm ( Hrodna - Warsaw ) 1435 mm
Legend 0.0 Saint Petersburg Warsaw Railway Station (1851-2001) from Saint Petersburg Vitebsk train station 44.6 Gatchina (since 1858) to Narva , Paldiski (Baltic Railway) 140 Luga (since 1859) 273 Pskov (since 1859) Towards Latvia Ostrow State border between Russia and Latvia from Riga Rēzekne 1 from Moscow from Riga and Vitebsk Daugavpils State border between Latvia and Lithuania Tower fantasies Visaginas Ignalina from Minsk Naujoji Vilnia 704 Vilnius (since 1860) to Kaunas 782 Varėna 803 Marcinkonys State border between Lithuania and Belarus   Line interrupted since 2004 by Druskininkai Poretsche from Minsk Hrodna (start of standard gauge ) Memel State border Belarus - Poland from Suwałki , Šeštokai Sokółka Czarna Białostocka end of broad gauge Białystok to Ełk , to Czeremcha Małkinia from Ostrołęka Tłuszcz to Legionowo Zielonka to Warszawa Rembertów, Warszawa Wschodnia Route Gdańsk -Warszawa 1333 Warszawa Wileńska   (1862–1915 "Petersburg Railway Station")

The Petersburg-Warsaw Railway ( Russian Санкт-Петербурго-Варшавская железная дорога , transcr. Saint-Petersburgo-Warschawskaja schelesnaja doroga ), also Warsaw-Petersburg Railway , was a railway line that connected Saint Petersburg with Warsaw . The line, opened in 1862 as a continuous broad-gauge line (1524 mm), was the third railway line built in Russia and the second in the Kingdom of Poland after the Tsarskoye Selo Railway and the Saint Petersburg – Moscow railway .

route

The railway line connected the then capital of the Russian Empire , Saint Petersburg, with the cities of Pskow , Vilnius , Hrodna , Białystok , which belonged to the tsarist empire , and with the capital of the Kingdom of Poland, which was ruled in personal union with Russia, Warsaw. The length of the route was 1250 versts , that is 1333 kilometers.

history

Construction and commissioning of the line

St. Petersburg Railway Station in Warsaw 1862–1915

The construction of the line began in 1851. After the construction work had to be interrupted from 1853 due to the Crimean War , only the 45-kilometer section to the residential city of Gatchina was opened in 1858 . In 1859 the line could be extended to Pskow (Pleskau) and on September 4, 1860 the first train reached Vilna . The entire railway line to the terminus in Warsaw, which was Warsaw's second station after the station of the Warsaw-Vienna Railway (Wiener Bahnhof, today Warszawa Centralna ), was put into operation in December 1862.

In 1895 the Warsaw-Petersburg Railway Company was nationalized and in 1906 with the Baltic Railway , which operated the line to the Estonian ports on the Baltic Sea, and the Pskov-Riga Railway to the North-Western Railway Company (Russian Северо-Западные железные дороги. Severit. Severo -zapadnye želesnye dorogi ) merged.

The year before, in 1861, a branching line from Vilnius to Wirballen train station (Станція Вержболо́во / translit .: Stancija Veržbolovo) in Kybartai on the Russian-Prussian border had been completed, and the first crossing between the Russian broad-gauge network and the European standard-gauge network was opened there. The short link to the border station Eydtkuhnen (today Russian Чернышевское / translit .: Černyševskoje ) of the Prussian Eastern Railway had tracks of both gauges.

After the First World War

destroyed railway bridge over the Memel in 1915

During the First World War , parts of the railway system were badly destroyed, including the bridge over the Memel near Hrodna. The Petersburg train station in Warsaw was blown up by the retreating Russian military in 1915.

After the First World War, the Polish-Soviet War and the Polish-Lithuanian disputes over central Lithuania , train traffic only existed on sections of the route. The line from Vilnius via Grodno , which now belonged to Poland and led to the Polish capital, was now in operation as a standard gauge line. In 1927 a new station building and a building for the railway management were built in Warsaw in place of the Petersburg station. The station was now called Vilnius Station ( Dworzec Wileński ), and it still bears this name today.

Situation today

After the collapse of the Soviet Union , the line was not only divided into a standard-gauge and a broad-gauge part, but was also divided between five countries (Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland), with the line crossing the EU's external border three times. Therefore, through trains from Warsaw (Warszawa) to Vilnius (Vilnius) leave the line in Białystok and reach Lithuania at the Mockava border crossing near Šeštokai . Trains from Warsaw to Saint Petersburg make a detour via Minsk. However, regional PKP trains run between Białystok in Poland and Grodno (Hrodna) in Belarus .

The section between the Latvian border and Saint Petersburg belonging to Russia is subordinate to the regional company of the RŽD in Saint Petersburg (Russian Октябрьская железная дорога, transkr. Oktjabrskaja schelesnaja doroga ). In Saint Petersburg the trains end at Vitebsk station ; until 2001 the end point was the Warsaw train station . After a renovation, the Russian Railway Museum was located there from August 1, 2001 to 2007 . The station building has been a shopping center since 2005.

Within Poland, the route from Warszawa Centralna to Białystok is used for long-distance traffic. The suburban trains of Koleje Mazowieckie from Małkinia end at the Vilnius train station in Warsaw, which was rebuilt in 2000 and connected to a shopping center .

Vilnius Central Railway Station, 2006

RŽD night trains run between Vilnius and Saint Petersburg. Within Lithuania, three regional LG trains run daily to the south from Vilnius to Varėna and Marcinkonys . Seven regional trains run north from Vilnius, five of them to Turmantas and up to two more to Ignalina .

As part of the Rail-Baltica project, the currently poorly performing bypass around Belarus is to be expanded via Šeštokai as a connection between Poland and Lithuania. The section Warsaw – Białystok – Sokółka on the former Warsaw-Petersburg line will also be modernized with EU funds.

Web links

• History of the Oktyabrskaya zheleznaja doroga

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Randburg.com: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from October 18, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . February 10, 2006. 
2. ^ History of the Oktjabrskaja schelesnaja doroga : Archived copy ( Memento of the original from July 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . February 10, 2006. 
3. ↑ Warsaw before 1939: http://www.warszawa1939.pl/index.php?r1=petersburski&r3=0 . February 10, 2006.
4. ↑ Press release LG of January 22, 2007: Archived copy ( Memento of the original of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.