Alexey Zakvasin
The railway across the Kerch Strait will be jointless and will be able to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake. Leonid Ryzhenkin, deputy general director for infrastructure projects of the company, the general contractor for the construction of the Crimean bridge, spoke about this in an interview with RT. According to him, when designing the transport crossing, engineers took into account the complex geology and difficult natural and climatic conditions of the region. Work on the railway track of the bridge will be completed in 2019, but in a few months the builders will connect the spans from Tuzla and Kerch.
- Panorama of the Crimean bridge
- most.life
- At what stage is the implementation of the project of the railway part of the Crimean bridge?
— This year we brought the construction of the railway part of the Crimean bridge to peak capacity. Work is underway along the entire length of the road - on all 19 km, on eight sea and land sections. The railway across the Kerch Strait began to be built simultaneously with the highway, in February 2016, but according to the schedule, it is commissioned later - in 2019.
In almost 30 months, we loaded all the piles, formed 295 out of 307 railway supports with a height of five to 35 meters, and collected more than 110,000 tons from 160,000 tons of span steel structures. They are heavier and more complex than road ones.
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Stable connection with the mainland: how the opening of the bridge across the Kerch Strait affected the tourist season in CrimeaThe Crimean bridge continues to set new records. On August 5, almost 32.5 thousand cars passed through it in a day. Just from the day...
Last winter, they began to build railway spans over the waters of the Kerch Strait using the longitudinal sliding method. This is a multi-step process. The structures are assembled from factory blocks at a stand on the shore and are moved one by one along sliding devices over the water area onto ready-made supports with jacks at a speed of about 6 m/h.
Thus, we are pulling the strings of flights to the arch from two sides - from the side of the island of Tuzla and from the side of Kerch. The bridge deck will close in this section in a few months. The railway arch itself, installed on supports last year, is now being equipped with everything necessary for future operation.
Inside and outside of this structure there are already viewing passages, stairs, platforms for personnel who will monitor the condition of the existing railway in the future. Under the vaults of the arch, a trolley will move along its tracks, with which employees will be able to control the operation of the tracks. In addition, architectural lighting is mounted on the arch.
After the launch of the railway, the fairway section of the Crimean bridge will be painted in the colors of the tricolor.
— What rails are used for the railway part of the Crimean bridge? When laying tracks, are natural and climatic conditions and terrain taken into account?
“Since July of this year, the installation of the superstructure of the track has been underway on those sections of the bridge deck of the Crimean Bridge that are currently ready. At present, this is the first construction site, the beginning of the Tuzla Spit. Two tracks are being formed for the movement of passenger and freight trains from the Kuban to the Crimea and in the opposite direction.
The upper structure of the path is formed from one coast to another: from Taman to Kerch. If on the highway we could lay asphalt in several sections at once, then the railway tracks are built linearly, sequentially.
- Deputy Director General for Infrastructure Projects at Stroygazmontazh Leonid Ryzhenkin
- Alexander Polegenko / RIA Novosti
We work with Russian-made rails, which are rolled on a Russian rail platform. These are standard heat-strengthened rails of the P65 type, which have already proven themselves and are widely used in our country. They were chosen by the designers taking into account the mode of operation of the bridge.
The road is designed for the movement of trains weighing up to 7100 tons with an estimated speed of up to 120 km/h for passenger trains and up to 80 km/h for freight trains in the temperature range from -27 to +57 °C. The capacity is up to 47 pairs of trains per day.
— How are the rails delivered to the bridge?
— The rails are delivered from the manufacturing plant by rail to the link assembly base deployed on the Taman Peninsula. Here the so-called rail and sleeper gratings are formed. Household trains transport them to the bridge, to the place of laying, along the finished section of the railway - the approach.
— It is known that Russian metallurgical companies are capable of producing rails tens and even hundreds of meters long. What will be the average length of the rails of the Crimean bridge? And will the path through the Kerch Strait be seamless?
- A seamless, or, as the railway workers say, "velvet track" is being built over the Kerch Strait. It consists of long rail lashes. Each lash is a long rail welded from several standard rails. The longer the rails, the fewer joints, passing through which the wheels of the trains characteristically knock.
The length of one rail whip of the Crimean bridge is 440 meters.
Between such lashes, so-called equalizing joints will be formed, which compensate for the thermal expansion of the metal.
— Can it be argued that Russia is building the longest railway bridge in its history? How difficult is this from an engineering point of view?
— The bridge across the Kerch Strait is the longest in Russia and Europe. Its length is 19 km. The natural conditions in the construction region are not simple and change along the long route from difficult to very difficult. Each site has its own conditions and requires certain design solutions.
For example, geology. In one area, solid layers of soil, in which the pile feels confident, are located closer to the surface. Here we used prismatic or bored piles with a depth of immersion up to 45 meters. In another area, strong layers lie deep. Above them is a layer of silty soil. And the pile must go through this thickness and go deep into the solid rock.
Here, powerful tubular piles with a diameter of almost 1.5 meters with a wall thickness of up to 40 mm were needed. They dived to a record depth of up to 105 meters. Each such pile was gradually built up from sections by welding circular joints, set at the desired degree and hammered to the design mark. We have loaded several thousand of these piles.
The weather in the strait is not at all a resort. We are building at the crossroads of two seas, where prolonged storms and surges are the norm. Almost 800 storm hours were counted last winter. Wind gusts reached 23 meters per second. In such conditions, it was necessary to build pile foundations. We drove the first pile in 25 days instead of the planned three. Then we worked out this process and reached the result of the pile in 24 hours, without sacrificing quality.
— What technological innovations are used in the construction of the railway across the Kerch Strait?
- The project of the Crimean bridge, like any other project of an out-of-class bridge, was developed under certain natural conditions. The Kerch Strait has high seismicity, a difficult climate, and complex geology. Based on the characteristics of the region, the engineers created the project. Both standard solutions worked out at other construction sites and new methods of work were chosen.
The Crimean Bridge project is a combination of a variety of solutions, such a project can be called unique. It was decided to expand the construction itself along the entire length at once: the Crimean bridge does not grow from coast to coast, but from the ground or water upwards. To do this, dozens of technological processes had to be implemented in parallel.
- Laying the railway tracks of the Crimean bridge
- most.life
If we talk specifically about the railway part of the bridge, then its most complex element - the navigable arch - was transported and installed on supports in a unique way. A most complicated maritime operation was implemented - the first of its kind in the history of domestic bridge building. Especially for its implementation, a floating system was developed and created, as well as a monitoring system with a combination of hundreds of sensors. This is a new experience, new knowledge and skills that will allow the development of bridge building.
— How secure is the railway part of the bridge? What load is it designed for? It is known that the road crossing is able to withstand a nine-magnitude earthquake.
— The Crimean bridge is being built and operates taking into account the seismic features of the region. According to scientists, once every five thousand years, tremors with a force of up to nine points can occur in the Kerch Strait. The likelihood that this will happen is small, but the designers took this moment into account.
Even before the start of construction, an analysis of all natural conditions in the strait was carried out. These are many months of research, laboratory research, work with archives. All the natural features of the region were taken into account when designing the facility. Taking into account these features, a construct was developed, construction technologies were selected. Leading Russian organizations were involved in the work, including the Institute of Physics of the Earth of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
A comprehensive anti-seismic protection was developed for the road and railway parts of the bridge. To improve the seismic stability of the facility, the designers increased the number of supports - 288 for the road and 307 for the iron part. Accordingly, if the step between the supports is minimal, the spans are short. The length of the spans of the Crimean bridge, with the exception of navigable ones, is up to 63 meters.
Another solution is inclined piles. The tubular piles of the bridge are sunk into the ground both vertically and at a certain degree. It turns out that a bundle, or a bush of piles, is formed under each support. Support on such piles is more stable during seismic vibrations.
For reliable operation, the road part of the bridge was equipped with special hydraulic devices - shock transmitters. 760 such anti-seismic devices are installed between supports and spans of the existing highway.
On the railway, the anti-seismic fixing of spans is different. Here, fixed and linearly movable bearing parts are used between spans and supports. On the one hand, the combination of these structures will allow the bridge to breathe in the event of thermal expansion of the metal, and on the other hand, with sharp and strong shocks in the event of an earthquake, on the contrary, they will reliably fix the main railway structures and ensure their integrity.
— What enterprises are participating in the cooperation on the construction of the Crimean bridge?
- The best bridge crews of the country - almost 30 organizations - were involved in the construction of the Crimean bridge. Some of them, for example Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov and Cheboksary, were created on the basis of bridge military recovery trains during the Great Patriotic War.
- The railway part of the transport passage through the Kerch Strait under construction
- most.life
The specialized domestic enterprises are responsible for the manufacture and supply of building materials, including Voronezhstalmost and the Borisov Plant of Bridge Metal Structures named after V.A. Sklyarenko. The main construction cooperation is 180 companies from all over Russia. Several thousand more medium and small businesses, including Crimean and Kuban ones, are indirectly involved in providing construction.
One of the largest orders for bridge builders in the Crimea was carried out by Sevmorzavod. Shipbuilders of the oldest city-forming enterprise of Sevastopol completed a floating system that delivered the arches of the Crimean bridge from the Kerch technological site to the installation site - to the fairway supports in the Kerch Strait. Undoubtedly, the significance of the construction of the Crimean bridge for the country is great: our enterprises received large orders, the project helped to solve the issues of employment.
The Kerch bridge... The topic of a significant percentage of news, both from the Russian and Ukrainian sides, since the peninsula joined the first. The subject of hidden hopes and joyful anticipations of the Crimeans, who do not tire of believing that this umbilical cord will be able to connect them with mother Russia. And, of course, perhaps the most ambitious and expensive Russian project for the construction of large federal facilities.
How much budget money has already been spent on it, and how much more will have to be spent - the latter cannot be estimated. After all, everything seemed to take up arms against Russian designers and builders: both nature and economic realities.
To do everything quickly, in the best communist traditions - impudently - did not work. And now, it seems, despite the vigorous assurances of the authorities, and the minting of reports of responsible persons, the complete completion of the entire project threatens to go into the camp of the most expensive long-term construction in the history of Russia.
Well, let's try to understand why not everything is so simple with the Crimean bridge, to assess its real prospects and predict what awaits the inhabitants of the peninsula and neighboring Russian federal districts in the future.
History reference
So, once upon a time, Crimea was quite enough to provide everything necessary, thanks to its connection with the world through the territory of Ukraine, of which, in fact, it was a part for very long decades, incl. good road and railway lines.
But, the eternal Crimean problem has always been that the peninsula was connected with the "mainland" only by a narrow isthmus - only 7 km at its narrowest point. On which, by the way, since ancient times, there was the Chumatsky Way - a trade route that connected the Crimean khanates with the lands of the free grassroots Cossacks.
Once Nestor Makhno was able to appreciate all the fortification charms of Perekop, later bloody battles of the Soviet army and the Nazi invaders took place here twice. After the annexation, Crimea realized that it was separated from Mother Russia by the unkind Kerch Strait, while the Ukrainian side sent the peninsula into transport isolation for re-education and reflection on their behavior.
Therefore, in March 2014, the Russian authorities hastily decided to start building a large bridge that would connect the Taman Peninsula of the Krasnodar Territory and the Kerch Peninsula (an agreement with Yanukovych dating back to 2013 on the hypothetical did not seriously consider signing, nor after). Although the idea of erecting it in this place, as it turns out, is far from new, even if one does not recall the theoretical thoughts on this subject even under tsarism, which Nicholas II then recognized as economically unreasonable.
It turns out that back in the years of World War II, the Nazis were going to build automobile communications here to ensure an unimpeded crossing to the similarly occupied Kuban. All materials for the construction were prepared, but by that time the war had come to its turning point and the invaders from the Crimea were expelled. The Union decided that good should not be lost, and completed what the Germans had begun - they built a bridge across the strait, but not a road one, but a railway one. Its length was only four kilometers, since the construction was moved to the narrowest point of the strait. By the way, it was on this bridge that the Stalinist delegation got to the Yalta Conference.
Shortly thereafter, a powerful melting of ice in the waters of the strait damaged the structure, since no one thought of securing it with a sufficient number of ice cutters at that time. By that time, the bridge had lost its strategic importance, and the authorities did not want to repair it, completely occupied themselves with arranging routes through Ukraine, as a result of which it safely rotted and rested in the waters of the strait.
Interestingly, during the years of perestroika, when the Soviet-Japanese friendship became extremely active, the USSR turned to the specialists of the Land of the Rising Sun with a request to work together on the revival of the project for the construction of a connecting bridge.
The Japanese carried out all geological exploration, made preliminary calculations and abandoned the project. Because even with all their technologies, which subsequently allowed them to build extremely large-scale bridges for tens of kilometers in the open sea and even open an airport on an entirely artificial island, they did not see the ability to curb the mobility of the soil here, the extremely active stormy climate and other problems.
The fact is that there is a large tectonic fault along the bottom of the Kerch Strait, and the thickness of silt deposits in this zone exceeds all permissible norms. The situation is also complicated by the fact that there are many active benthic mud volcanoes. Finally, in order to build a bridge along the most convenient path, it was necessary to demolish an ancient monument - the Kerch fortress, protected by UNESCO, which, of course, no one would ever go for.
As you know, a few decades later, Russia nevertheless took up the Crimean bridge, and at the moment even managed to complete some work on it.
new bridge
According to the project, the average height of the Crimean bridge should be about five dozen meters. Where navigable zones are planned, it will be about 35m. Instead of an economical 4 kilometers, they decided to build along the longest of all possible trajectories, thanks to which the length of the canvas reached 19 km.
The bridge should consist of two parts: an automobile one (separate lanes for cars and trucks - one of each type in both directions) and a two-track railway. The Russian authorities decided to hurry up with the start of work as early as March 2014, they started, despite many obstacles, and at the beginning of 2016, despite the unkind winter, they loaded the first piles into the waters of the strait.
The situation was complicated by the fact that in addition to problems with the construction of the Kerch bridge itself, it was necessary to work on bringing railways and highways to the zone of its exit to solid ground. Tenders for the choice of a contractor for the construction of the railway line were disrupted twice, as all those involved in the process were afraid to fall under sanctions, which were automatically subjected to everyone associated with the Crimean history, including aspects related to the bridge.
The choice of a contractor was also complicated by the too low budget cost for such a project - only 16.9 billion rubles. But, in the end, everything seemed to be resolved safely for the current fate of the bridge, and the Rottenberg company entered into an agreement with Roszheldor.
In total, the entire construction budget was initially estimated at 150 billion rubles, of which 86 billion were to go directly to the structure itself, and about 51 billion to build railway supplies and roads to it.
The business structure of one of the most privileged Russian oligarchs automatically became the general contractor for the project, after which its cost was revised upwards to 212.5 billion. And although Rottenberg and all the individuals and companies involved in the project were under the norms of sanctions packages, all their costs and financial problems, Russia, represented by President Putin, promised to compensate without problems.
In May 2018, the President of the Russian Federation himself solemnly opened the first stage of the new Kerch bridge, which has one lane in each direction and can withstand a passage of no more than 3.5 tons of light vehicles.
Those responsible for the construction hope that nothing will prevent them from opening the cargo section in the middle of this autumn, and for some reason the launch of the railway line was postponed until the end of 2019. True, there are some reasons to doubt the strict fulfillment of the deadlines, since Uprdor Taman (the state customer for the construction of highways to the bridge) requested compensation of 22.5 million rubles. from the Ministry of Transport for delaying the execution of the contract for 4.5 billion rubles. And until this scandal gets at least some kind of completion, the construction will obviously not be continued.
Features of the railway part of the Crimean bridge
As for the railway segment of the structure, in January-February 2018, the first parts of the railway spans were laid. Heavy-duty jacks were used to install each branch, resisting a weight of 500-1000 tons and pushing them towards the finished supports.
For construction, span parts are delivered to Tuzla Island by sea, which are assembled on site at a special stand. Work on their installation at the moment, according to contractors, is progressing at 4.5 cm / min. In total, exactly thirty such spans will be installed on the water section.
The total weight of the bridge should be about 60 thousand tons, each span of which weighs about 580 tons. And besides these mounted structures, there will be about ten more key elements on the bolted and welded joint. The supports were driven into the bottom of the strait at a distance of no more than 65 m, and a total of 64 of them were installed. The total length of railway structures is 6 km. By the time of opening, the Crimean bridge will become one of the longest in Russia.
Video
The article was written specifically for the site “2019 Year of the Pig”: https://website/
On this topic, we finish with the road part of the Crimean bridge. We start the operation.
As a kind of smooth transition to the upcoming most interesting part of the project, after the installation of arched spans, I propose to enjoy a trip along the Crimean bridge together with a comrade from Yevpatoria Captain Crimea. His solemn video of today's historic crossing of the bridge is posted at the end of the post.
Let's look frame by frame from one part of the bridge, the road, to the other - the railway -
The railway arch was the first to completely change the appearance of the Kerch Strait. She will take part in the final stage of the installation of railway superstructures. It is to it that the last spans will be moved, forming the completed silhouette of the great Russian bridge.
Let's spit three times on support No. 256Zh! So that later some of the non-Britkins are not spread rot because of her.
"Go!" - twice (s).
Let's start the journey with the Captain from the future new park of the Kerch-South station. On the right, an inspection complex for trucks and the initial elements of a future city interchange for the exit from the Crimean bridge to the Hero City of Kerch are being built -
It is precisely because this inspection complex was not built in time for the early opening of the road part of the Crimean bridge that the movement of trucks could not start ahead of schedule. This is a security problem. And not that some boobies are talking about the imaginary insecurity of the bridge structures themselves.
On the right, under it, the railway tracks of the new electrified double-track highway "Krasnodar - Taman-Passenger - Kerch-South - Bagerovo" will also pass.
It seems to me possible that under the overpass it is quite possible to lay some local dead-end tracks from the Kerch-South station, with its future development -
There is enough space under the flyover spans for a couple of these.
We are accompanied by guys with respected flags -
In the company of admirers of the USSR Navy, we drive up to the exit point to the Crimean bridge. Please note: to the right of the autobahn, the lower structure of the future railway track under construction is already visible -
With the passage of time, the picture will become more man-made: ballast, sleepers, rails, contact network supports and signaling traffic lights will appear. The view will be awesome.
Because of the noise screens, the railway spans of the Crimean bridge are shown -
Now imagine electrification poles on them, affectionately blinking traffic lights and a train sliding along them. Flying into the Crimea, to meet us, a two-story train under EP20!
You can finish! I guarantee those who have not seen anything like this in reality, if you take this away on the Crimean bridge, at a level much higher than the autobahn, you will go nuts -
And if he still buzzes. It will be possible to splash boiling water into shorts, from complete happiness.
Made in Russia!
Railway spans have already been assembled on a significant part of the Crimean bridge. There are also small gaps. They don't last long
Today, the road bridge is already open. And people work on the railroad. In the video, you can pay attention to how the workers affably wave from a height to passing motorists. The whole Crimea is delighted. Not everyone managed to take part in the first passage, but the joy from this is no less.
The video clearly shows how the railway bridge gradually takes uphill -
I have already explained why. Among regular readers there are no fools. They have long understood everything with the slopes of the bridge, and without me. Just in case, I will repeat for those who did not pay attention to this before.
The railway should have more gentle slopes than the road. From this, the automobile bridge turned out to be more humpbacked. Against its background, the smoothness of the railway is very well emphasized. Two silhouettes, being different, harmoniously complement each other.
We reached the first slipway from the Crimean side of the sliding of spans -
Not all spans are assembled on land and then lifted with cranes. Or they are assembled directly above the supports, lifting parts of the spans with cranes. The spans are pushed over the sea, after collecting them on a special slipway. The technology is very simple: they assembled the span, moved it along the axis of the bridge, assembled a new one in the vacant place, and moved it, pushing the previous one with it. And so on, all the way to the desired point.
This particular one will not be pushed into the arch -
This one will rest against the same span, in the place of the next sliding slipway. It would be foolish to move large trains from the spans. They are divided into sections. Pay attention to the foreground of the railway span. Above him, just visible joyful workers. Heroes of the construction site are waving to us. This is their handiwork! This whole bridge. And it's not a figure of speech. It is their hands. Even with a high level of mechanization, manual labor, as always, plays an important role. Yes, and the mechanisms are also not controlled by an ass.
So: the lead is much shorter than those used on the road bridge. This is because the railway spans are more rigid in the longitudinal plan. Their cross sections are higher than those of road spans, and their width is narrower. Because of this, they bend under their own weight not so much. Consequently, when sliding, being in the role of a console, they do not descend as much as road ones.
For those who are interested in testing this in practice, take a simple ruler and try to bend it in different planes: flat and vertical. Be sure to write about the results, as it is now fashionable to talk in pursuit of a rating, in the comments!)
Flights from it will already rest against the arch itself. From that, the extreme span differs from the rest in its shape on the one hand -
And the front under it is a little different.
As we see further: before the arched span, it remains to build a few supports. The piles there have long been driven in, the grillages are ready. We can't see it, as the autobahn has gone uphill, and we are moving away from the sea. Only the booms of the cranes stick out. It remains only to pour out the bodies, columns, and crossbars. Until the autumn should calmly be in time.
We pass the legendary strong man - support No. 256A -
The pinnacle of pleasure
At Tuzla, we are met by a palisade of spatial reinforcement frames of columns and the finished columns of railway supports themselves -
From the side of Taman, an oncoming flying snake is confidently crawling on them -
Fuck you, Russophobes!
Oncoming Tuzla slipway -
What's there? Leonid Kuchma with binoculars and a shovel is not visible? This keeper of Tuzla is not digging in there what?
Bikers -
"Night Wolves" - they are great. You can treat them differently. There are no perfect people. But for the fact that, back in 2009, they gave hope to the Russians of Crimea, they helped to understand: Russia will not leave - honor and respect.
What were those years with Yusch's Bandera pimply mug and the oppression of Sevastopol. With all sorts of signs on the Grafskaya pier in honor of some mythical 100th anniversary of the Ukroflot, with the ugly Saiga Dachny, with their attempts to help the Georgian aggressors in 2008, forbidding the ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet to enter their home - in the bays of Sevastopol, and other nonsense.
And from the side of Sevastopol there was one thing - the mass support of its inhabitants for any actions of Russia. And the contempt of any banderlozhih encroachments. "Night Wolves" did not come to a strange city with something of their own. They came to their Russian city of Sevastopol, and to their Russian Crimea, to support their own.
Further in the video, it is clearly seen: the railway bridge already has a significant high percentage of readiness. It couldn't be otherwise.
At the end of the video, there is no fixation on the Taman railway approach. It's OK. There will be a surprise for the next reviews soon. The rails are very close.
November 12, 2018 bridge builders completed work on the construction of supports for the railway part of the Crimean bridge. 307 structures are ready, which are now being gradually taken over by superstructures.
The final was the railway support No. 254 in the Kerch Strait in the area between the fairway and the Crimean coast. It consists of a foundation on 16 tubular piles sunk at different angles to a depth of up to 70 meters, and a body made of steel reinforcement and hydrotechnical concrete.
The support has been brought to the design mark - 33 meters from the water level, almost the height of a 12-storey building. The final stage was the concreting of its upper elements, on which special devices are later installed - supporting parts (spans are placed on them), a kind of balancers, which will provide the necessary angular and linear movements of the spans invisible to the naked eye in case of thermal expansion of the metal or possible seismic vibrations.
The main stage in the construction of the railway part of the Crimean bridge today is the installation of spans. This complex technological process takes place in all offshore and onshore construction sites. In total, more than 15 kilometers of the transport crossing between Crimea and Taman have already been blocked by spans at 8 construction sites.
On the ground supports, the spans assembled at the stands are placed by cranes, on the marine ones they are moved along sliding devices over the water area onto the ready-made supports with jacks at a speed of about 6 m/h.
On the finished spans, sequentially from the side of the Taman coast, the upper structure of the railway track is being formed: at the moment, more than 9 out of 38 km of the rail-sleeper grid have been laid.
Completion of the installation of spans on land and at sea is planned for the first quarter of 2019. In the fall of next year, the structure of the track superstructure will be completed on the bridge. The movement of trains on the Crimean bridge will begin in December 2019.
Recall that a seamless, or, as the railway workers say, “velvet track” is being built over the Kerch Strait. It consists of long rail lashes. Each lash is a long rail welded from several standard rails. The longer the rails, the fewer joints, passing through which the wheels of the trains characteristically knock.
The length of one rail lash of the Crimean bridge is 440 meters.
Between such lashes, so-called equalizing joints will be formed, which compensate for the thermal expansion of the metal.
The railway part of the Crimean bridge meets the requirements of category II railway lines and includes two tracks. According to the calculated data, the road is designed for the movement of trains weighing up to 7,100 tons with an estimated speed of up to 120 km/h for passenger trains and up to 80 km/h for freight trains in the temperature range from -27 to +57°C. Throughput - up to 47 pairs of trains per day.
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The project for the construction of the Crimean bridge provides that its automotive component will be put into operation in December 2018. The launch of traffic on the railway part of the bridge is scheduled for December 2019.
The start of the bridge should open a new page in the life of the Crimean railway, which is currently undergoing a period of large-scale modernization.
Kiev left Crimea, taking wagons and locomotives
The railway came to the Crimea in 1874, when the movement of trains from Melitopol to Simferopol was opened.
All the main branches that connected the peninsula with other regions of the country went through Ukraine. This most logical option turned into a problem after the Crimean spring and the return of the peninsula to Russia, when official Kiev headed for a transport blockade of Crimea.
To begin with, the Ukrainian authorities tried to take out all movable property. Analysts at the Kiev Center for Transport Strategies reported in March 2014 that the new Ukrainian authorities tried to take out everything newer, including ChS7 passenger locomotives, track machines and new series cars.
The Gudok newspaper, citing its sources, reported that former head of the Simferopol locomotive depot Viktor Mandyk on the eve of the referendum, he overtook the newest locomotives 2TE116 and ChS7 to Melitopol, quit and left for Dnepropetrovsk. As a result, in the spring of 2014, the Crimean railway workers had to use ChS2 locomotives manufactured in the early 1960s to provide passenger traffic.
The heavy legacy of the Ukrainian period
In Ukraine, for more than three years, they like to talk about “colossal losses incurred as a result of the annexation of Crimea.” In fact, the situation is reversed - the entire period of independent Ukraine, the infrastructure of the peninsula, created in the Soviet period, was destroyed with the complete indifference of the Kiev authorities.
The Crimean railway is no exception. The Russian specialists got the farm in a terrible state.
In October 2014, specialists from Russian Railways and Goszheldornadzor, who assessed the Crimean railway, concluded that the infrastructure of the KZD, namely the superstructure of the tracks and turnouts, was in an unusable condition. On many sections of the railway, experts from the supervisory agency recommended reducing the speed of trains to 40, 25 and even 10 kilometers per hour. Only with such a high-speed mode was it possible to ensure safe movement.
It was necessary to almost completely change the rolling stock, modernize existing branches and build new ones.
Transport blockade
From that moment on, messages “There are no more railways in Crimea!” appeared in the Ukrainian media on a regular basis. or "The transport blockade made the Crimean railway stations empty."
The cessation of the movement of passenger and freight trains through Ukraine, of course, had a negative impact on the life of the Crimean railways.
But, on the other hand, there is no evil without good. The reduction in traffic made it possible, in more free conditions, to prepare for a new stage in the life of the Crimean railway. The stage, which will begin in December 2019.
Back in 2014, the Moscow-Simferopol passenger train was launched, which went to the peninsula through a ferry crossing. This practice is not new - part of the trains from the eastern regions of the RSFSR in the Soviet years moved to the Crimea through a ferry crossing. However, now, after several months of work on such a scheme, it was decided to abandon this practice. It turned out to be faster and easier to carry tourists on a single ticket on buses from the railway stations of Anapa and Krasnodar than using a ferry to transport passenger trains.
big construction
Therefore, the restoration of the movement of freight and passenger trains to the Crimea will occur after the launch of the Crimean railway bridge.
In addition to the work that is being done in the Crimea, as well as the construction of the bridge itself, no less significant tasks are being solved by railway builders in Taman.
From the Vyshestebliyevskaya station, a 42-kilometer section is under construction, which will lead directly to the bridge. The Kerch section from the Bagerovo station to the bridge will be 17.8 km.
The laying of a section on the Taman Peninsula was envisaged during the construction of the Taman port and included the construction of a new Portovaya station 8 km from the transport crossing. Near the village of Taman, the Taman-passenger station is planned. On the Kerch section passing through Cementnaya Slobidka, a branch line to the Kerch-Yuzhnaya station and the creation of a new park are provided. It is also planned to build four overpasses, two bridges and a tunnel on this section.
24 hours from Moscow to Simferopol
Until recently, skeptics expressed doubts - are the intentions of the Russian authorities realistic? But the pace of construction of the Crimean bridge, the successful implementation of the most complex operation for the transportation and installation of railway and automobile arches, testify: when people work, and do not argue, almost everything is doable.
Summer 2017 General Director of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Crimean Railway" Alexey Gladilin said that for the trains that will go to the Crimea after the opening of the bridge, it is planned to purchase 800 cars, most of them are double-decker sleeping cars in a compartment design.
Speaking in Alushta at the IV Crimean Transport Forum, Gladilin said: “It is planned to purchase 15 pairs of passenger trains. Moreover, they will be distributed as follows: two trains each to Sevastopol, Evpatoria and Feodosia, the rest - to Simferopol. Approximate time of train movement between Simferopol and Moscow will be from 24 to 28 hours.
In the future, the railway route to the Crimea is planned to be made high-speed, reducing the travel time from the capital to Simferopol to 18 hours.
The launch of passenger trains to the Crimea is only the first stage of the new life of the railways of the peninsula. But, probably, it will make sense to talk about the future later, as the plans turn into real deeds.
