Norilsk Railway () is a single-track railway and formerly the northernmost railway line in Russia.

Main information

The railway is in northern

Krasnoyarsk Krai Krasnoyarsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia located in Siberia. Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Krasnoyarsk, the second-largest city in Siberia after ...

, southern

Taimyr Peninsula The Taymyr Peninsula ( ) is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of the mainland of Eurasia. Administratively it is part of the Krasnoyarsk Krai Federal subject of Russia. Ge ...

and connects the mining towns

Talnakh Talnakh ( rus, Тална́х, p=tɐɫˈnax) is a district (''raion'') of Norilsk, located about north of the Central District at the foot of the Putorana Mountains in Taymyr Peninsula, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. Formerly a town, it was merged into ...

Norilsk Norilsk ( rus, Нори́льск, p=nɐˈrʲilʲsk) is a closed city in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located south of the western Taymyr Peninsula, around 90 km east of the Yenisei, Yenisey River and 1,500 km north of Krasnoyarsk. Norilsk is 300 ...

and

Kayerkan Kayerkan (), located in the northern part of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia and in the southern part of the Taymyr Peninsula, was a town under jurisdiction of Norilsk Norilsk ( rus, Нори́льск, p=nɐˈrʲilʲsk) is a closed city in Krasnoyar ...

with the port

Dudinka Dudinka (; Nenets: Тут'ын, ''Tutꜧyn'') is a town on the Yenisei River and the administrative center of Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It used to be the administrative center of Taymyr Autonomous Okrug, ...

on the

Yenisei The Yenisey or Yenisei ( ; , ) is the fifth-longest river system in the world, and the largest to drain into the Arctic Ocean. Rising in Mungaragiyn-gol in Mongolia, it follows a northerly course through Lake Baikal and the Krasnoyarsk Dam b ...

. The railway line has a , and was partially constructed by the prisoners of

Norillag Norillag, Norilsk Corrective Labor Camp () was a gulag labor camp set by Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia and headquartered there. It existed from June 25, 1935 to August 22, 1956. *Karlo Štajner (1902-1992), Croatian writer *Nikolay Urvantsev ( ...

. Originally, it was narrow gauge, 114 km long, and built in 1936. Later, in 1953, it was rebuilt to Russian broad gauge and expanded to 231 km of track. The railway is owned by the

Norilsk Nickel Norilsk Nickel (), or Nornickel, is a Russian nickel and palladium mining and smelting company. Its largest operations are located in the Norilsk–Talnakh area near the Yenisei River in the north of Siberia. It also has holdings in Nikel, Zapo ...

mining company and does not belong to

Russian Railways Russian Railways or RZD () is a Russian fully state-owned vertically integrated railway company, both managing infrastructure and operating freight and passenger train services and has a near-monopoly on long-distance train travel in Russia. ...

From 1957 onwards, the railway was electrified with 3kV DC in stages. Electrical Multiple Units of the ER1 and ER2 series were used for suburban passenger transportation.

VL10 The VL10 (Russian: ВЛ10) is an electric two-unit mainline DC freight locomotive used in the Soviet Union and is still operated today by the state owned Russian rail company RZhD, Ukrainian Railways and Georgian Railway. The initials ''VL'' are ...

locomotives were used to haul heavy freight trains on the railway. In the 1990s, the railway was in serious decline. In 1998 the electric

catenary In physics and geometry, a catenary ( , ) is the curve that an idealized hanging chain or wire rope, cable assumes under its own weight when supported only at its ends in a uniform gravitational field. The catenary curve has a U-like shape, ...

was removed and the electric rolling stock sold off. Diesel locomotives haul freight trains since then, passenger service on the railway was discontinued. In the early 1990s, a paved highway connecting Norilsk with Dudinka was completed. The passenger train service on the Norilsk Line ended in 1998. The former passenger depot is now the Nornickel rail division office and houses a rail museum in the former waiting room. In 2010 in the

Yamal Peninsula The Yamal Peninsula () is located in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug of northwest Siberia, Russia. It extends roughly 700 km (435 mi) and is bordered principally by the Kara Sea and its Baydaratskaya Bay on the west, and by the G ...

Gazprom PJSC Gazprom ( rus, Газпром, , ɡɐsˈprom) is a Russian State-owned enterprise, majority state-owned multinational Energy industry, energy corporation headquartered in the Lakhta Center in Saint Petersburg. The Gazprom name is a contract ...

completed its

Obskaya–Bovanenkovo Line The Obskaya–Bovanenkovo Line is a railway line in northern Russia, built and owned and operated by Gazprom. It was opened for traffic in 2010 and was built for the gas fields around Bovanenkovo on the Yamal Peninsula, the Yamal project. In ...

, which is now the northernmost railway in Russia.

References

External links

Norilsk railway
o
Sergey Bolashenko's railway site
(Russian)

(Russian) {{Coord missing, Krasnoyarsk Krai Norilsk Railway lines in Russia Track Rail transport in Krasnoyarsk Krai 1520 mm gauge railways in Russia Metre-gauge railways in Russia

Main information

See also

References

External links