Karinskaya narrow-gauge railway

Karinskaya narrow-gauge railway
Bridge over the Chepza River
Entire narrow-gauge railway, 2011
Route length:	81 km
Gauge :	750 mm ( narrow gauge )

The narrow-gauge railway Karinskaja ( Russian Каринская узкоколейная железная дорога , transkr. Karinskaja uskokoleinaja schelesnaja doroga , transl. Karinskaâ uzkokolejnaâ železnaâ doroga ) was about 81 km long narrow gauge railway with 750 mm gauge in Kirovo-Chepetsk in Kirov Oblast in Russia for the transport of peat and Passengers.

history

The first section of the peat railway was put into operation in 1942. It was 22 kilometers long, including a bridge over the Chepza River that opened on July 22, 1942. The cargo of the first peat train with 10 lorries was handed over to the thermal power station on December 14, 1942.

In 1949 (according to other sources early 1953) the construction of a three hundred meter long permanent bridge over the Chepza was completed. By 1955, about forty kilometers of rails had been laid to the northern Prokopyevsky peat bog (Прокопьевского торфомассива), on which the Oktyabrsky settlement (Октябрьский) was built.

In 1959, a distance from the station Torfjanaja (Торфяная) south on the overpass across the line was Kirov - Jar of Trans-Siberian Railway opened. This enabled the direct narrow-gauge railway connection between the Kirovskaya CHPP-3 peat plant in Kirowo-Chepetsk and Vaska and later with a new peat plant that was built near the village of Burmakino (Бурмакино).

The length of the entire rail network at times exceeded a hundred kilometers. The narrow-gauge railway was originally part of the transport department of the Karin peat company, but was spun off in 1958 into an independent company. The main depot on the line was located at the train station in the village of Karintorf. Smaller depots were located in the Oktyabrskaja stations (Октябрьская), in the Rechnoi settlement (Речной) near Burmakino and in Waskino (Васькино).

In connection with the decline in peat extraction and the conversion of the main peat consumer ( Kirovskaya CHPP-3 ) to natural gas, the closure of the line was planned from June 2012.

On February 17, 2012, the last freight train with peat drove from Karintorf to the Kirovskaya CHPP-3 plant . The end of passenger traffic between Karintorf and Kirowo-Tschepezk was planned for July 1, 2012, after which the Karintorf district would have lost its only year-round transport connection to Kirowo-Tschepezk.

At that time, the last remnants of peat that had already been cut were removed, whereupon the rails from Novy (Новый in the seventh micro-district of Kirovo-Chepetsk) to Torfjanaya station (Торфяная) were dismantled. On May 27, 2012, rails at the Belokholunitsky (Белохолуницком) level crossing on the road from Slobodskoi to Belaya Cholunitsa were removed by covering the former level crossing with gravel and dismantling the barriers. This split the Karinskaya narrow-gauge railway into two parts. It was only on two sections of the route at Kirovo-Chepetsk and at the Oktyabrsky settlement (Октябрьский).

In 2012 a pontoon bridge was built over the Tschepza and a bus connection between Kirowo-Tschepezk and Karintorf was set up at least in the warm season, so that passenger traffic on the narrow-gauge railway was shut down.

There are plans to reopen a section of the route as a museum railway for tourist purposes.

Rail vehicles

Railway operations were carried out by the ТУ4 and ТУ7 diesel locomotives . UMV series peat wagons were used, some of which were even equipped with brakes. Freight trains could run under double traction.

TU4-2286 with a passenger train in front of the high-rise buildings in Kirovo-Chepetsk
ТУ7А-3318 with a passenger train at Torfjanaya station (Торфяная)
ТУ7А-3042 at an open railroad crossing