Arctic Circle Railway

Arctic Circle Railway Tschum – Igarka
Arctic Circle Railway and neighboring railways
Route length:	1459 km
Gauge :	1520 mm ( Russian gauge )
Legend from Kotlas 0 Tschum (Pechora Railway km 2200) 6th to Vorkuta 28 Nikita 45 Etc. 51 Yeletskaya (Yeletsky) 75 Chorota 97 Polyarny Urals 99 Border Republic of Komi / Yamal-Nenets 118 Sob 153 Charp -Severnoye Sijanije 181 Obskaya to Karskaya 196 Labytnangi Whether (planned) 209 Salekhard Jangijugan 359 Polui 489 Jarudei 589 Nadym Nadym (under construction) Stary Nadym Nowy Chorei 699 Pangody Nyda 819 Novy Urengoy to Jamburg Korottschajewo to Surgut Bridge over the Pur 909 Urengoy 1059 Vodorasdelnaya Bridge over the Tas 1129 Sedelnikovo Qataran Jamal-Nenets border / Krasnoyarsk region Turuchan (unfinished) 1219 Janow Stan Kostjor from Achinsk and Lesosibirsk Yermakovo Bridge over the Yenisei 1339 Yenisiskaya 1459 Igarka Dudinka

The Arctic Circle rail ( Russian Трансполярная магистраль ), also Stalin web , Stalin railway or "the dead line" ( Russian Мёртвая дорога , "Mjortwaja doroga"), is a finished in portions and partially powered railway track in the northwestern Siberia in Russia which the inner Eurasian border crosses .

When fully completed, it should extend over 1,459 km from the Chum station ( Komi Republic ) on the Pechora Railway through the Urals and the West Siberian lowlands , including crossing the Ob , to Igarka ( Krasnoyarsk region ) on the Yenisei . During the construction period, from 1947 to 1953, the Gulag project was named number 501 and number 503 . The route was planned as a strategic line that should lead to a planned Soviet navy base. Instead, railway department number 503 helped the Stalin Railway, with its barracks and the infrastructure built in the 1950s, to discover the largest natural gas deposit in the Soviet Union, the Urengoy gas field, in 1966.

course

In the west, the route of the Arctic Circle Railway, which runs mostly a little south of the Arctic Circle , begins at the Tschum station north of the Arctic Circle, which is located southwest of Vorkuta in the Russian Komi Republic on the Pechora Railway just north of the Ussa River .

The Polyarny Ural station, taken towards Asia (2014)

From there, an operational section, crossing the border of the Komi Republic with the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, leads initially eastwards through the Polar Urals upwards along the Jelez tributary to the settlement of Polyarny Ural, which is on the inner Eurasian border and at the crest of the Ural mountain range; there is a station building, four houses and a few tool sheds. Then the route goes down along the Whether influx Sob to the stations Sob and Charp , then southeast, the large West Siberian lowland to achieve, through which it runs from now. In Obskaya the branches obskaya-bovanenkovo line to the northeast.

The route then reaches the town of Labytnangi am Ob. A bridge could have stayed there for lying beyond the Ob Salekhard to lead. From there, a built, but later abandoned stretch ran south of the Arctic Circle on the stations polui and Jarudei southeast to the Nadym town of Nadym .

On the other side of the Nadym River, a section of the Arctic Circle Railway that is in operation as part of the Yamal Railways leads predominantly north-east and along the right Chetta to the Pangody, which is on this river . It then heads east-northeast to Novy Urengoy , which lies on the Jewo-Jacha River . There branches off a railway to the east coast of the direction north-northwest Obbusens lying Jamburg from. Next east-southeast, the railway line reached at Pur lying Korottschajewo where they currently seamlessly into the south-southwest to toward Surgut , located on the Ob, leading railway Ult-Jagun-Korottschajewo passes.

Across the river Pur, which the Arctic Circle Railway should have crossed on a bridge, lies the city of Urengoy : From there, a planned but not built section of the railway should have led eastwards via the Vodorasdelnaya station to the bridge over the Tas planned at Sedelnikowo . Across the river ran the route there structurally started, the limit of the Yamalo-Nenets to Krasnoyarsk crossing, for at Yanov Stan planned bridge over the Turukhan to the east of it sometimes, running along this river and the Makovskaya (also Dipkun called ) crossing to lead to Kostjor .

From Kostjor a built but abandoned section of the railway, leaving the Turuchan River, crossed the Barabanicha River northeast to the village of Yermakowo , located on an extensive loop of the Yenisei . There the railway line should have crossed the Yenisei on a bridge leading to Yenisiskaya , and then to the east, crossing the Arctic Circle to the north, to Igarka , which is a little further north, also on the Yenisei ; While the section adjoining Yenisiskaya was only in the planning stage, the section leading to the end point Igarka was already completed, but was also abandoned.

The tracks of the Yeletskaya station with a view of the Polar Urals in the background (2014)

The railway line in the tundra, a few kilometers from Labytnangi . Left the masts of the historic telephone line (2014)

A watchtower of "Project 503", about an hour's flight from Turukhansk away

Remnants of the abandoned route between Salekhard and Nadym

history

overview

The Arctic Circle Railway was planned with a route roughly along the northern polar circle . It was to lead from Tschum through the Urals , then crossing the Ob at Salekhard , and through the West Siberian lowlands with its inhospitable taiga and tundra to the planned deep sea port at Igarka on the Yenisei. The construction project, which began in 1947 and was operated by hundreds of thousands of Gulag inmates, was stopped after Stalin's death in the summer of 1953.

1947 to 1976

See also : Obskaya – Mys Kamenny railway line

On February 4, 1947, the Soviet government decided to build a new deep sea port along the “Northern Sea Route” . The choice for the location of the port fell on the area north of today's Nowy Port on the west side of the Obbus , near the Cape Mys Kamenny. An approximately 500 km long railway line was required for the onshore connection and supply. This should begin a little southwest of Vorkuta as a branch of the Pechora railway and then take the path first east through the Polar Urals, and then - shortly before the mouth of the Ob River - run north. The construction of the port and railway line began in the spring of 1947. However, due to the shallow water of the Obbus, it was necessary to realize that no ocean-going ships could land there. The project, which was numbered 502, was stopped and the construction of the port at the planned location was not pursued any further. As the railway line was almost completed as far as Labytnangi on the west bank of the Ob and, for strategic reasons, a new port for ocean-going ships was to be built in the “far north”, the focus was then changed.

On January 29, 1949, the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union under Stalin decided to build a sea port on the Yenisei in the Igarka district. A 1200 km long railway line had to be built from the city of Salekhard to the port of Igarka. Project No. 501 on the Ob River and Project No. 503 on the Yenisei River were supposed to connect as parts of the Arctic Circle Railway. In the spring of 1949 the first convicts who were used as construction workers arrived. Between 100,000 and 120,000 people, mostly Gulag inmates, were used to do this. The first train service was supposed to work in 1952 and the entire railway line should be ready in 1955. Thus, in the north of the Krasnoyarsk region, construction project No. 503 was created. The headquarters were in the village of Yermakovo . In 1949 about 62.5 million rubles were invested in project planning and preparation as well as building materials . Despite its size, no one heard about Project 503, either in the newspapers or on the radio. All documents about this railway project were top secret.

After Stalin's death, the project was discontinued in the summer of 1953, although some of the previously mentioned sections of the Arctic Circle Railway are in operation. In addition, the telephone line to Igarka remained in operation until 1976.

Since 2011

At the beginning of December 2011, the Spanish OHL group received an order worth 1.95 billion euros from the Yamalskaja schelesnodoroschnaja kompanija , a subsidiary of RŽD , Gazprom and the Ural Polyarny company , for the construction of the 390 km long Labytnangi - Nadym section as a single-track , non-electrified route. The construction is divided into three sections and also includes the construction of the 1.3 km long bridge for car and rail traffic over the Nadym , the car section of which opened in September 2015. A total of five years of construction was assumed. But then there were financial difficulties and further construction stalled. The completion of the Nadym railway bridge has meanwhile been postponed to other projects (as of 2020).

In 2017, the expansion of the line from Labytnangi to Nadym and the expansion of the subsequent sections were announced for the years 2018 to 2022. On May 11, 2018, the foundation stone was laid for the 2.5 km long Obbrücke, which will lead the route east of Labytnangi across the river. Primarily gas, oil and ores are to be transported here.

The long-term goal is to complete the Salekhard – Igarka railway line in order to better develop the great natural resources of the arctic regions. In addition to the ore extraction from Norilsk , the oil and gas field of Vankor , discovered in 1988 , 130 km west of Igarka on the Great Cheta (Krasnoyarsk region), is to be better developed in this way.

literature

• Михаил Ю. Афанасьев: Полярная магистраль . ВЕЧЕ, Moscow 2007, ISBN 978-5-9533-1688-0 (Russian, The Polar Magistrale. ).
• Norbert Mausolf: The Stalin Railway Trilogy. In search of traces in the Arctic Circle . Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt 2011, ISBN 978-3-8423-5398-5 .

Web links

Commons : Arctic Circle Railroad  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• The Stalin Railway - a historical overview , on wo-wir-waren.de
• About the construction of the Salekhard – Igarka railway line , on memorial.krsk.ru
• Sonia Mikich for Railway Romanticism : Episode 280: Ice World 3rd Class , about parts of the section between Tschum and Labytnangi, film from February 7, 1998, on swr.de.
• Technical problems with the construction of railway lines on permafrost ground, on stalinbahn-trilogie.de
• Virtual tour of one of the gulags that were used in the construction of the Arctic Railroad ( memento from December 5, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) on gulag.cz

Remarks

1. ↑ After jst: Closing the gap in the Siberian tundra . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 7/2018, p. 358: 359 km.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Announcement about the opening of the Nadymbrücke auto section on September 13, 2015 , accessed on September 25, 2015, on rg.ru (Russian)
2. ↑ ^{a b} jst: Closing the gap in the Siberian tundra . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 7/2018, p. 358.
3. ↑ Железнодорожная часть моста через Надым не будет построена в следующем году. Retrieved February 10, 2020 (Russian). 
4. ^ Northern Latitudinal Railway agreement signed. In: Railway Gazette . April 6, 2017, accessed April 6, 2017 . 
5. ^ OHL signs Ural Polar railway contract. In: Railway Gazette. December 13, 2011, accessed December 25, 2011 . 
6. ↑ New east-west connection via the Arctic Circle orbit . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International (ERI), 7/2012, p. 352 f.