In September, at the Eastern Economic Forum, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Marat Khusnullin, who oversees the construction complex, said that railway workers should be given as much money as they can handle for infrastructure development. There is a real problem behind this sacramental phrase. The Russian Railways network has 5.4 thousand km of railway lines with more than 85% capacity utilization.

Growing through the Arctic and Siberia

In addition to modernizing the existing infrastructure, the development of railways in Russia requires the creation of new lines. One of the current projects Director General of Institute for Transport Economics and Development JSC (IEDT) Irina Magnushevskaya calls the construction of the Northern Latitudinal Railway Obskaya - Salekhard - Nadym - Pangody - Novy Urengoy - Korotchaevo, aimed at further development of the mineral resource base of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

Railway transport should acquire greater importance with the implementation of state policy in the field of development of Arctic territories. Here, a special role is given to the creation of approaches to the ports of the Northern Sea Route with the construction of the lines Belkomur (Arkhangelsk - Syktyvkar - Solikamsk), Polunochnoe - Obskaya (Ural Industrial - Ural Polar), Sosnogorsk - Indiga, as well as the Transpolar Railway (Korotchaevo - Russkoe - Igarka - Norilsk – Dudinka), the head of IEDT lists.

Expansion paths

Of course, new construction projects are planned not only in Siberia and the Far East, but also in the European part of the country. According to I. Magnushevskaya, as an alternative to the existing railway line Tuapse - Adler, located in a complex geological zone along the Black Sea coast, where there is a threat of mudflows, rockfalls, landslides, etc., it is planned to build a double-track railway Krivenkovskaya - Sochi, which should pass along the southern spurs of the Caucasus Mountains, 10–12 km north of the existing section of the route.

In total, according to IEDT, with the implementation of current initiatives to expand the railway network by 2035, its length may increase by 8 thousand km of new lines and by 38 thousand km – by 2050.

The full text of the article can be found on the website of RZD-Partner.