Murmansk railway Vekhov N.V. History of the Murmansk railway. The initial stage of colonization work
Exactly 100 years ago, a strategically important railway to the ice-free port of Murmansk.
Wartime circumstances forced the government of Nicholas II to hastily construct it. More precisely, the need for reliable access to the ice-free Kola Bay. Moreover, it was planned to build a road 987 miles long (250 of them through swamps) in an extremely short time - by the fall of 1916.
The total cost of construction of the Murmansk railway with a length of 1054 km was determined at 180 million rubles. According to the design plans, the Murmansk Railway, with the completion of construction in the fall of 1916, was supposed to ensure the daily delivery of about 470 thousand pounds of ammunition, medicine and all other equipment and achieve a turning point in the war.
Under pressure from the allied England, an agreement for laying the northern section (120 versts) was concluded with the brother of British Field Marshal John French, Austin, who requested an advance of 560 thousand rubles in gold from the tsarist government. Having received the money and calculated his commission, French hired a contractor - the English company Boulton Brothers and Co., which imported Canadian workers. But the work did not go well, and after laying only 10 versts of canvas, they went home. As for money, apparently, Russia, being a debtor to the allies, did not dare to make a claim.
Three route options were proposed: from Rovaniemi station, from Nurmes station and from Petrozavodsk.
The area where the railway was to be built was deserted. Only a telegraph thread and postal stations, which were served by the inhabitants of these places - the Sami - reminded of civilization. Now it was necessary to lay a railroad track through rocky mountains, forests, tundras and swamps, build stations, sidings, bridges and other structures. All this had to be done quickly, but before starting to build the embankment, it was necessary to deliver a huge amount of cargo to the construction site and provide the workers with housing and food. According to engineers' calculations, 20,000 workers were required for the Kandalaksha-Kola line alone. In the spring of 1915, Murmanstroyka leaders ordered rolling stock and laying material from the USA.
Having allocated additional funds, the Russian government decided to build the road on its own, more precisely, by the forces of 30 thousand peasants recruited in the Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Simbirsk, Penza, Kaluga and Smolensk provinces. Most of them headed north through Arkhangelsk, where the local administration of Murmanstroyka was established.
What the natives of the middle zone encountered was strikingly different from what was promised. Harsh climate, poor nutrition, disease, unbearable living conditions - all this led to mass exodus.
Survey engineer A.M. Azancheev at the construction of the Murmansk railway. 1915
Finding out the reasons for this phenomenon, the construction site was inspected by the Arkhangelsk governor Bibikov, who, based on the results of the trip, compiled a report that was depressing in content. For example, this highly secret document stated the following:
“Most of the barracks do not meet the conditions of the northern climate in hygienic and sanitary terms - they have no floors or windows. Often the barracks are placed in the very swamp and are completely surrounded by water, penetrating into the dwellings themselves...
Murman England agreed to supply some of the construction materials. Some items were also purchased from France and Norway. Personal consumption items (food, clothing, shoes, shag, etc.) were prepared economically in the interior regions of Russia and transported to the city of Arkhangelsk, to the central warehouse of Murmanstroyka. The first batches of builders arrived on the Kola Peninsula in May 1915. By the beginning of June, there were 1,450 workers in Kola and Semenovskaya Bay and a little more than 3 thousand in the Kandalaksha area. Due to an acute shortage of labor, the construction management demanded the sending of prisoners of war, and in the second half of the summer of 1915, 2,100 of them arrived on the Kola Peninsula. Already by August 7, 1915, it was possible to complete the laying of the track from Kandalaksha to the Zasheyek pier, which made it possible to begin work in the inner part of the Kola Peninsula.
A notch in the rock near the bridge over the Kem River in the area of the Murmansk Railway.”
Using Lake Imandra, which stretches 100 kilometers along the route, it was possible to carry out construction from several points at once. But in order to transport batches of workers and construction cargo by water, it was necessary to deliver the necessary floating equipment to the lake. The road builders solved this problem brilliantly. In the port of Kandalaksha, a rail track was laid along the seabed to the shore, onto which railway platforms were driven at low tide. At high tide, the water level in Kandalaksha Bay rises to 5.5 meters. At such a time, a towing steamer and several barges were installed above the platforms, which, as the water receded. descending, sat on the platforms, were secured on them and, without much difficulty, were taken to the Zasheek pier. Here the ships were launched into the water on a slipway.
The barges loaded the locomotive and platforms that had just brought the ships to the lake, as well as rails and tools, and the tug steamer pulled it all to the northern end of the lake. Thanks to this combination, road construction was significantly accelerated.
Prisoners of war on construction
There is an extreme shortage of baths, and workers remain in the mud for several months. The evacuation of patients is carried out extremely slowly; the sick lie in barracks together with the healthy. At the same time, since they are not working, the distribution of food is immediately stopped; their illnesses are aggravated by hunger.”
The terrifying picture of the pre-revolutionary Gulag, reliably drawn by Bibikov, did not make any impression on the capital’s authorities. Therefore, no measures were taken to improve the situation of the workers. And they decided to fill the shortage of labor caused by escapes, illnesses and high mortality with new thousands of recruits.
However, residents of the central provinces, having already heard about the “delights” of Murmanstroyka, no longer believed the promises of the recruiters.
Therefore, 33 thousand German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war were urgently transferred to the construction site. The prisoners soon found themselves there as well.
Group of participants in the construction of the railway, 1915
But the labor of forced labor was not highly productive, as a result of which the delivery deadlines for sections of the road were missed. And then they remembered the conscientious and diligent builders of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) - the Manchurian Chinese.
And in order to lure them, they simply deceived them. However, this was not difficult to do, because they did not imagine the conditions of the Far North and, out of naivety, thought that their work would be paid by the Russian authorities in the same way as during the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway.
In the summer of 1916, again, parties of Chinese who were not yet aware of the deception of the Chinese (up to 10 thousand in total) passed through Arkhangelsk, for whose temporary accommodation barracks were hastily put together on Smolny Buyan. Life in these drafty buildings with leaking roofs was barely tolerable, but was later remembered as heavenly, since the word “terrifying” to describe the conditions in which the Chinese found themselves at the construction site was, of course, still soft. This is evidenced by the report of the Alexandrovsk (Kola) police officer Rudakov, who informed Bibikov of the following facts:
“The shortage of housing is strikingly striking when observing the life of the Chinese. They are placed under plank and turf canopies. Since the Chinese are employed in their grub, they eat berries, low-quality mushrooms (toadstools), algae, which they eat even raw, and do not disdain the meat of dead animals. Under such conditions, it is not surprising that diseases have already begun among them. There were also deaths. When winter comes, illnesses can take on significant proportions, especially since scurvy among workers and prisoners does not stop.”
On the trolley, section of the railway line, 1915
However, not only Chinese backs were slashed with whips; Russian civilian workers were also beaten with them. This is evidenced by the text of a telegram sent to Bibikov by worker Fomina. She reported that workers not only do not receive money, but are also subjected to corporal punishment. Explaining these facts, the Kem police officer Kanyaev calmly reported: “For those who refuse to work, coercive measures are taken up to and including the use of whips. Those punished do not make statements to the police.”
Engineer A.M. Azancheev moves along the construction of a road on a sleigh.
« On October 29, 229 sick prisoners and 500 sick workers and Chinese were sent by ship from Knyazhya Guba" Upon arrival in Arkhangelsk, they were placed in the same barracks for “follow-up treatment.” And what happened to them next is evidenced by the fact that not far from Isakogorka, a Chinese cemetery was built in the forest. By the way, E. Fraser mentioned these secret burials in her book “The House on the Dvina.”
About another cemetery, which censorship also forbade writing about until February revolution, local newspapers reported immediately after the fall of tsarism. They were talking about Surkovskaya Koshka (now Krasnoflotsky Island), to which in the summer of 1916 livestock purchased for Murmanstroyka were brought - up to 6 thousand cows. As a result of inconsistency, they rushed to send the hay intended for the cows to the north, but they were in no hurry to send the animals. By autumn, the cattle had eaten all the vegetation available on the island and began to die out. As the newspapers wrote, with the onset of cold weather, there was a terrible roar of freezing and dying cows over the river, which had become hostages of the inactivity and bungling of the bureaucratic machine, which had practically stopped on the eve of the revolution.
Photo “Soldiers at the construction of the Murmansk railway”
Back in the summer of 1916, Minister of Railways A.F. Trepov submitted a report to the Tsar in which he petitioned for “the transformation of the railway village near the Murman station into an urban settlement.” The name of the future city was also proposed - Romanov-on-Murman. The development plan for the city of Romanov, drawn up by engineer B.V. Sabanin, provided for the creation large number avenues and streets, squares and gardens. The central highway on the city plan was named Nikolaevsky Prospekt; to the south of it are Aleksandrovsky, Mikhailovsky, Alekseevsky avenues, Vladimirskaya and Olginskaya streets - all in honor of members of the imperial family.
The streets of Torgovaya, Arkhiereyskaya, Bankovskaya, Inzhenernaya, Dumskaya, Morskaya and others fanned out from the main square.
Employees of the Murmansk Railway construction office.
After the revolution, the new authorities opened criminal cases regarding these accidents, which are still stored in the regional state archives. Cases opened on the facts of beatings and deaths of workers, requisition of horses from peasants of the Onega district, misappropriation of large sums of money, theft of food and building materials, that is, everything that was characteristic of the last construction of imperial Russia, are also preserved there.
And a few more photos
M U R M A N K A
The issue of building a railway to Murman was raised several times, but did not move until the first one struck. world war. A road to the ice-free Barents Sea has become absolutely necessary.
The total cost of construction of the Murmansk railway with a length of 987 versts (1054 km) was determined at 180 million rubles. According to the design plans, the Murmansk Railway, with the completion of construction in the fall of 1916, was supposed to ensure the daily delivery of about 470 thousand pounds of ammunition, medicine and all other equipment and achieve a turning point in the war.
The area where the railway was to be built was deserted. Only a telegraph thread and postal stations, which were served by the inhabitants of these places - the Sami - reminded of civilization. Now it was necessary to lay a railroad track through rocky mountains, forests, tundras and swamps, build stations, sidings, bridges and other structures. All this had to be done quickly, but before starting to build the embankment, it was necessary to deliver a huge amount of cargo to the construction site and provide the workers with housing and food. According to engineers' calculations, 20,000 workers were required for the Kandalaksha-Kola line alone. In the spring of 1915, Murmanstroyka leaders ordered rolling stock and laying material from the USA.
Murman England agreed to supply some of the construction materials. Some items were also purchased from France and Norway. Personal consumption items (food, clothing, shoes, shag, etc.) were prepared economically in the interior regions of Russia and transported to the city of Arkhangelsk, to the central warehouse of Murmanstroyka. The first batches of builders arrived on the Kola Peninsula in May 1915. By the beginning of June, there were 1,450 workers in Kola and Semenovskaya Bay and a little more than 3 thousand in the Kandalaksha area. Due to an acute shortage of labor, the construction management demanded the sending of prisoners of war, and in the second half of the summer of 1915, 2,100 of them arrived on the Kola Peninsula. Already by August 7, 1915, it was possible to complete the laying of the track from Kandalaksha to the Zasheyek pier, which made it possible to begin work in the inner part of the Kola Peninsula.
Using Lake Imandra, which stretches 100 kilometers along the route, it was possible to carry out construction from several points at once. But in order to transport batches of workers and construction cargo by water, it was necessary to deliver the necessary floating equipment to the lake. The road builders solved this problem brilliantly. In the port of Kandalaksha, a rail track was laid along the seabed to the shore, onto which railway platforms were driven at low tide. At high tide, the water level in Kandalaksha Bay rises to 5.5 meters. At such a time, a towing steamer and several barges were installed above the platforms, which, as the water receded. descending, sat on the platforms, were secured on them and, without much difficulty, were taken to the Zasheek pier. Here the ships were launched into the water on a slipway.
The barges loaded the locomotive and platforms that had just brought the ships to the lake, as well as rails and tools, and the tug steamer pulled it all to the northern end of the lake. Thanks to this combination, road construction was significantly accelerated.
According to the construction schedule, the laying of the track from Kandalaksha to Murman should have been completed by December 31, 1915, after which it was planned to immediately begin transporting military cargo. In winter, they were supposed to be delivered from Kandalaksha on horseback to the Finnish Railway (via Kuolajärvi to Rovaniemi station), and with the opening of navigation on the White Sea - by ship to Soroka, and further - along the newly built railway to Petrograd. Therefore, construction managers did everything to quickly open traffic along the Murman-Kandalaksha line. The rails along the tracks were laid directly on the ground, and wooden bridges were built. Technical standards were not observed when constructing the track - the rises reached 15 meters per kilometer of track (instead of the permissible 6 meters). The road was built, so to speak, in rough form. And yet, on November 15, 1916, the Murmansk Railway was put into temporary operation.
Back in the summer of 1916, Minister of Railways A.F. Trepov submitted a report to the Tsar in which he petitioned for “the transformation of the railway village near the Murman station into an urban settlement.” The name of the future city was also proposed - Romanov-on-Murman. The development plan for the city of Romanov, drawn up by engineer B.V. Sabanin, provided for the creation of a large number of avenues and streets, squares and gardens. The central highway on the city plan was named Nikolaevsky Prospekt; to the south of it are Aleksandrovsky, Mikhailovsky, Alekseevsky avenues, Vladimirskaya and Olginskaya streets - all in honor of members of the imperial family.
The streets of Torgovaya, Arkhiereyskaya, Bankovskaya, Inzhenernaya, Dumskaya, Morskaya and others fanned out from the main square.
|
Three route options were proposed: from Rovaniemi station, from Nurmes station and from Petrozavodsk. |
In August 1914, the Russian Empire, through the efforts of the reigning family, managed to get into the squabbles of the Europeans. Cousin Willie quarreled with Nikki's cousins and instead of solving the problem like normal men - punching each other in the face, and then rolling out 0.5... both decided to play in the war, which cost both the crown and the lives of millions of subjects... But this lyrics. Let's return to our Arctic.
The Slavs began to actively explore the Kola Peninsula back in the 11th - 12th centuries, when Novgorod merchants and ushkuiniki turned their attention to the North and moved for furs. The few tribes of indigenous peoples who lived there began to pay rent and buy various kinds of products from Novgorod artisans. Almost simultaneously with the Novgorodians, Scandinavians appeared on the Kola Peninsula, who had their own alternative point of view on the ownership of the northern lands. Novgorodians have repeatedly concluded various agreements with their neighbors on the delimitation disputed territory, but the Kola Peninsula finally fell to the Russians only in the middle of the 13th century, after the defeat of the European crusaders and the collapse of the Northern Crusades.
Until the end of the 19th century, the Kola lands were not of particular interest to the authorities - they were far away, but with the advent of railways and the development of science, plans for the development of distant lands began to appear.
The first project for the construction of the northern highway was submitted to the government Russian Empire in the 1870s. But, due to the high cost of implementation, construction was constantly postponed. With the outbreak of the First World War, due to the great strategic importance, shortage of weapons, ammunition and other military equipment, in December 1914 the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire decided on the urgent construction of a railway connecting Petrozavodsk and the planned port in the Kola Bay (Murman). The strategic importance of the road was to ensure the transportation of military cargo coming from the allies to the ports of the White and Barents Seas - Soroka, Kandalaksha and Semyonovsky.
After Emperor Nicholas II approved the construction of the Murmansk railway at the expense of the treasury on January 1, 1915, the Special Construction Department of the Murmansk Railway was created under the general leadership of engineer V.V. Goryachkovsky. On the Petrozavodsk-Soroka road section, construction work was supervised by engineer V.L. Lebedev, on the Soroka-Murman section - by engineer P.E. Solovyov.
The average monthly number of workers employed in construction was more than 70 thousand people. In total, up to 170 thousand people were employed at various stages of construction, among whom more than 100 thousand were peasant migrant workers, more than 40 thousand were prisoners of war of the Austro-Hungarian and German armies, more than 2 thousand were soldiers of railway battalions. 10 thousand Chinese from Manchuria and two thousand Kazakhs from the Semipalatinsk region, as well as about 500 Canadians, were recruited for construction. Workers liable for military service were granted a deferment from conscription to the front. Along the road construction route, 14 medical centers with 616 beds were opened, each of which had a doctor and 2-3 paramedics. By August 1916, over 10 thousand sick workers were evacuated from the highway, more than 600 people died from illnesses and injuries in medical centers.
During the construction of the road (1053 km), more than 260 km of swamps, over 110 km of rocky outcrops were overcome, and more than 1100 artificial structures were built.
On November 3 (16), 1916, on the stretch between the Boyarskaya station and the Ambarny stage, where two parties of layers met, walking towards each other from the north and south, a solemn ceremony of driving in the last “golden spike” of the Murmansk Railway, the world’s northernmost railway track, took place .
The Murmansk railway ended with the northernmost railway station at that time - Murmansk, which was built simultaneously with the construction of the Murmansk railway and the Murmansk port, in 1915 (October 4, 1916, the city of Romanov-on-Murman was founded in its place).
The official Act on acceptance for temporary operation of the Murmansk Railway was signed on November 15, 1916. In the future it was necessary to replace temporary wooden bridges metal and reinforced concrete, build station workshops, provide stations with a constant water supply, strengthen the railway track in some areas. The road's capacity was 60-90 wagons per day, the average speed of trains was 11-12 km/h.
The complete construction work was completed after the end of the Civil War in Russia.
In March 1917, the Petrozavodsk station of the private Olonets Railway was transferred to the Murmansk Railway.
On April 1, 1917, the private Olonets Railway (line Zvanka station - Petrozavodsk station), bought by the state, was attached to the Murmansk railway.
Temporary goods traffic was opened on January 1, 1917; from April 1, 1917, the Murmansk Railway was included in direct communication with Russian railways.
On September 15, 1917, regular passenger traffic began; passenger train No. 3/4 passed along the entire section of the road from Zvanka to Murmansk.
In 1917, the number of permanent workers and employees of the Murmansk Railway was about 16.5 thousand people. 
— When did the construction of the Murmansk railway begin?
— Plans for the construction of a large port and railway station on the Kola Peninsula arose back in the 19th century. But the real impetus for construction was the First World War. To deliver military supplies from the allies, it was necessary to build a city, an ice-free port and a railway on the Kola Peninsula. During the First World War, the Baltic and Black Seas were blocked, Arkhangelsk froze in winter. Kola Bay, thanks warm current The Gulf Stream could receive ships all year round.
On September 1, 1915, the Swedish steamer Drott entered this bay, delivering the first cargo in the history of the future capital of the Arctic. These were rails and turnout kits that arrived from New York. Thus, we can say that the history of Murmansk began with a rail and sleeper grid, and the first residents of the new city were the railway workers - the very ones who laid and maintained these rails. The Murmansk railway was divided into three large sections, the construction of which was carried out in parallel. Petrozavodsk - Soroka Bay (356 versts), Soroka Bay - Kandalaksha (376 versts) and Kandalaksha - Murmansk (260 versts).
Most of the work took place in the fall and winter, when temperatures dropped to 30 degrees below zero. Despite this, due to the extreme urgency of the work, a strict continuous work schedule was established throughout the polar night. Workplaces were lit with torches, because the lanterns went out in the constant wind and snowstorms. As a result of the heroic efforts of the builders, in April 1916, a section of the Kandalaksha-Murmansk road was opened to traffic. And on November 16, 1916, on the Boyarskaya - Ambarny section, a junction of tracks stretching from the south and north took place. It was from this day that through traffic on the railway began.
— What difficulties accompanied the construction?
— The incredible speed with which the new railway was built, heavy natural conditions, difficulties in delivering materials for construction - all this could not but affect the quality of the constructed track. Compared to the original project, about 40% of the work remained unfulfilled. In many areas it was necessary to strengthen the railway track, bring the track profile to the main type, replace temporary wooden bridges with metal and reinforced concrete ones, and it was necessary to organize workshops at stations. As a result, the road's capacity was only 60-90 cars per day. By modern standards, the route would be considered unsafe, and trains would be prohibited from passing along it. However, during the First World War, the road was of strategic importance for Russia, and military cargo arriving at the port began to be sent via the Murmansk railway, despite all the shortcomings.
— Can you tell us about some interesting episode that happened during the construction of the road?
— In June 1915, track laying began on the Kandalaksha-Murmansk section. The site was divided into three parts, construction on this site was planned to be completed by January 13, 1916. However, it was not possible to meet the deadline due to the fact that the tsarist government hired the English construction company Lord French to carry out work on the northernmost part of the site. It would seem that several hundred experienced builders and engineers from the British Empire - the founder of the railways - should have shown their class to ordinary Russian men. However, despite the fact that the British were well supplied and paid good money, the results of their work turned out to be more than modest, or rather, a failure.
By January 1, 1916, they had built only 13 kilometers of track from Murmansk to the mouth of the Kola River, while our builders in the other two sections from Kandalaksha to the north laid approximately 100 kilometers of track in the same time. Of course, it was simply unacceptable to endure such bullying, given the importance of the construction, and they decided to terminate the contract. Despite the outright sabotage on the part of the British and the justified indignation of Russian engineers about this, when terminating the contract, England was paid a significant penalty in gold, and the official reason for terminating the contract was “non-compliance with the terms of the contract by the Russian side.”
This was done by political reasons. The owner of the company was a relative of the commander-in-chief of the British troops in France, John French, and the Russian side took the blame for the early termination of the contract, allegedly not creating necessary conditions for work. After the removal of the British, it turned out that even the site they had already built was no good, and all the work they had to do had to be redone. Moreover, a section of 80 kilometers remained unfinished, which had to be built in the dead of winter, in severe frosts. As a result, showing real heroism, Russian builders built a railway on this site instead of the British, whose participation in the project only turned out to be a waste of money, nerves and time.
— What role did the railway play in the First World War, the 1917 revolution and Civil War?
- In the first year of operation alone, 26 thousand Maxim machine guns and millions of shells were transported along the Murmansk railway - in total over 100 thousand tons of military cargo. For belligerent Russia, these were, without a doubt, transportation of strategic importance. And even though train speeds on the road, built in extreme conditions and in great haste, were limited to 12 km/h, the railway workers did not allow a single accident with trains carrying military cargo.
The head of the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, was heading along this railway to Murmansk to secretly, in the uniform of a Serbian officer, board a ship and flee Russia forever. During the First World War, the Murmansk Railway saw troops of the British and French, as well as Entente allies - Serbs and Poles. At first, foreign military contingents were present in the region as allies - to protect the Murmansk railway from possible German attacks, then - as interventionists who fought against Soviet power on the side white movement. To this day, the old English cemetery, preserved within the city of Murmansk, reminds us of the interventionists.
— On January 27, 1935, the Murmansk Railway was renamed the Kirov Railway in honor of Sergei Kirov, who did a lot (until his tragic death) for the development of industry and transport in the Arctic. What function did the railway serve during the interwar period?
— In the summer of 1921, at the direction of the People’s Commissar of Railways Felix Dzerzhinsky, a special commission studied the state of the Murmansk railway. Experts recognized the condition of the road as disastrous and calculated that to bring it to a more or less satisfactory technical condition it would be necessary to invest about 40 million rubles. The young man has so much money for these purposes Soviet state was not found, the question arose about temporarily closing the road. In that emergency state, it was simply not capable of allowing trains to pass. The issue of lack of finance was overcome in a rather unexpected way - they allowed the railway to solve its financial problems itself, granting so-called colonization rights. In fact, railway workers received the right for 10 years to freely develop and exploit forests, mineral resources, waters and other natural resources in the areas where the road passed, and use the proceeds to repair tracks and build bridges.
Railway divisions appeared with unusual names like “Zhelles”, “Zhelryba” or “Zhelslyuda”, engaged in the procurement and sale of timber, fish, and minerals. Already the first year of work on the colonization system has produced impressive results. During this period, the railway in the Arctic became, in fact, a system-forming enterprise in the region. For example, the first stone building in Murmansk was built in 1927 thanks to her. Railway workers not only spent the funds received from colonization rights on current needs and improvement, but also implemented projects aimed at the future. It was at the expense of the railway that work was carried out in the Murmansk region to search for minerals. In particular, it was the railway that organized and paid for the expedition of Academician Fersman, which resulted in the discovery of amazingly large deposits of various minerals, such as the Monchegorsk copper-nickel deposit and the Khibiny apatite deposit. Mines, factories, cities and new sections of the railway leading to the deposits began to be built.
— It is known that at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War Lend-Lease cargo was supplied along this road to the European part of the USSR. How did this happen?
— With the arrival of the first ships with military cargo from the USSR allies in the Murmansk port anti-Hitler coalition the question arose about their speedy unloading. To speed up the process, railway workers used the “ship-wagon” scheme when transshipping cargo, in which the cargo was moved into the wagon directly from the ship. To do this, it was necessary to bring the rails close to the side of the ship. The railway workers were given the task of laying several completely new access roads in the port in the shortest possible time. But there was nowhere to get rails, sleepers and bolts, which were in acute shortage at that time. Then it was decided to dismantle some of the station tracks, primarily the rarely used dead ends. The problem was solved, but rush construction of the tracks without serious engineering calculations was a big risk, especially due to the dangerous nature of the cargo, such as explosives and ammunition, that had to pass along these temporary tracks every day.
However, the temporary route did not fail, and no emergencies or failures in the unloading of ships from allied convoys due to the fault of the railway workers occurred. The work at the Murmansk station was supervised by the head of the station's cargo yard, Vasily Goltsov. The work at the station under bombing was so hard, exhausting and dangerous that he was literally eager to go to the front, but they did not let him go.
— What happened to the railway directly during the hostilities? It is known that the Nazis regularly bombed the road. This is true? Which areas were attacked more often than others? And how was the defense organized?
— Nazi planes subjected the railway junction and the road along its entire length to frequent and fierce air raids. The front line passed nearby, and from the nearest German airfields, planes could fly to Murmansk in literally 10-20 minutes. According to a memo from the chief of staff of the local air defense of Murmansk dated December 10, 1941, at the Murmansk station alone since the beginning of the war there have been “20 cases of destruction of the railway track from 15 to 30 meters each.” And this is only for the first six months of the war! In total, during the war years, 97 raids were carried out on the Murmansk railway junction, 757 high-explosive and 42 thousand incendiary bombs were dropped. 24 turnouts and 2 bridges were destroyed. Throughout the Murmansk region, during the raids, locomotives received 216 damage, and carriages received about 1,300 damage. During the war, 82 Murmansk railway workers died at work.
— It is known that electric locomotives were also used on the Murmansk Railway during the war. Is this really true?
- Yes. The Murmansk section of the railway is perhaps the only one in the world where electric locomotives were used during military operations, under continuous bombing. On the Murmansk - Kandalaksha section since the 1930s (for the first time in Soviet Russia) electric locomotives VL-19 appeared. During the war they demonstrated their invulnerability. An ordinary steam locomotive was disabled by a couple of bullet holes in the boiler: the pressure dropped and the train could not move. And the electric locomotive easily survived dozens of bullet hits. In addition, enemy pilots simply could not detect electric locomotives - unlike steam locomotives, they did not unmask themselves with smoke from the chimney.
— How did the railway function after the end of the war?
— The war ended, and the north began to recover. And then the construction of new sections of the railway began on an unprecedented scale. New branches were laid to mining and processing plants, mines, and factories. In 1956, the Pinozero-Kovdor section was built, in 1961, the Kola-Pechenga section, and in 1968, the Zapolyarnaya-Nickel section was completed. New sections of the road were electrified, second tracks were laid, new technologies and new equipment were mastered.
It is interesting, for example, that for the leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro, his acquaintance with the USSR began, oddly enough, with the Murmansk railway. In April 1963, a plane landed at the airfield near Olenya station in the Murmansk region, bringing Cuban leader Fidel Castro to the USSR. The leader of the Cuban Revolution covered the first kilometers across the territory of the USSR along railway lines served by the Murmansk route. From Olenya station (now Olenegorsk) a special train took him to Murmansk. A ceremonial meeting in honor of the distinguished guest took place right on the station square, where literally the entire city gathered, even schoolchildren had their classes canceled that day. The stand was installed directly next to the station building. They could not immediately put the Cuban leader on the train. In April of that year it was very cold in Murmansk and there was snow. Fidel was so shocked by the snow, which he had never seen before, that he rolled in it for a long time and played with it like a child. At first, by the way, he was also dressed out of season, so right at the airfield he was given a warm uniform jacket with fur and a hat with earflaps from army supplies. It was in them that he was captured during his visit in many photographs.
— What role does the railway play today?
— The potential of the northern part of the road was most fully revealed in new economic conditions, when in 2003, on the basis of the Ministry of Railways Russian Federation The Russian Railways company was created. Previously unprecedented results were achieved in terms of key production indicators. Thus, coal unloading this summer amounted to a record 600 wagons per day. At the same time, the newest, by far the most powerful Ermak locomotives in the world, went into operation. Largely thanks to the efforts of the railway workers of the Murmansk region, the Oktyabrskaya Railway was able to become the winner of the industry competition this year and was recognized as the best of the entire network of Russian railways.
Eduard Epstein
The construction of the Murmansk transport hub has exacerbated the problem of insufficient capacity of the railway connecting the Arctic with the mainland. For the Murmansk region, railway transport is the main one - it carries about 60 percent of the total freight turnover. "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" has already reported that on west bank A coal terminal has been laid out in the Kola Bay, which by 2021 should be able to handle 18 million tons of coal annually. In order to connect it with the Oktyabrskaya Railway, a 46-kilometer railway line is being built between the stations Vykhodnoy and Lavna.
In 2017, about 14 million tons of coal passed through Murmansk, and today there is already a shortage of capacity of the Oktyabrskaya Railway. By 2025, the volume of cargo transportation in this direction will reach 45 million tons - 2.1 times higher than in 2017, say experts from the Institute of Economics and Transport Development.
The problem of the railway bottleneck is to be solved by the expansion of the Volkhovstroy - Murmansk railway section. It is planned to begin in 2019, said Igor Polikarpov, deputy head of the Murmansk territorial department of the Oktyabrskaya Railway. Possible ways to increase the capacity of this section are already being explored. The Lengiprotrans Institute began designing the second main tracks on priority hauls and stations from Murmansk to Volkhovstroy. In order for the railway to cope with freight traffic, it is necessary to increase the length and weight of trains. Today, trains with a length of 57 standard cars and a weight of up to 4,600 tons are used on this route. In the near future, trains weighing from 6,000 to 6,300 tons should run on this section, and with the use of innovative cars with a carrying capacity of 76 tons, the weight of the train could be 7,100 tons. The length of the trains will be 71 standard cars, Lengiprotrans General Director Dmitry Golubovsky said in an interview. According to him, the main problem of the Volkhovstroy-Murmansk section is related to the fact that out of 1,320 kilometers of its length, more than 340 kilometers are single-track sections. This is what limits its throughput. In addition, the stations on this section have too short a length of receiving and departing tracks - it is not sufficient to receive and send trains with a length of 71 conventional cars.
The work on debottlenecking will be divided into two stages - until 2020 and until 2025, added Dmitry Golubovsky. First of all, it is planned to carry out this work in the Murmansk - Kandalaksha and Malenga - Belomorsk sections.
"Bottlenecks" in railway communication are typical not only for the Arctic. This is a common problem for railway approaches to all ports of the North-West, according to the Russian Railways development strategy until 2030. According to this document, the length of the “bottlenecks” is more than 10 thousand kilometers. If the railway infrastructure is not modernized, their length could double by 2020. By 2015, railway workers intend to invest 253 billion rubles in their modernization.
Railways on the approaches to ports - both in the North-West and other regions of Russia - are having difficulty absorbing the current freight flow, notes Alexander Slobodyanik, expert analyst at the Institute for Problems of Natural Monopolies. - When modernizing the railway infrastructure, it is necessary, first of all, to increase the speed of cargo delivery and processing. Today, for cargo owners, this condition is one of the key ones.
According to various estimates, during the journey of a wagon with thermal coal, one day of downtime in transit increases the cost of one ton of coal by 2 percent. This is a significant factor, considering that from 2012 to 2015, the price of coal decreased from 131 to 73 dollars per ton and only resumed growth in 2016, according to a study by the National Coal Corporation.
