On track: Train link to Crimean Bridge is almost complete

More than 80 percent of railway track to the newly-built bridge linking Russia with Crimea is complete, according to the project’s website. The railroad will link the bridge with the transport system of Crimea and mainland Russia.

Construction and installation works are being carried out along the entire length of the route. It is constructed using a continuous welded railroad track way, which will make the trip almost noiseless. Workers have already laid the roadbed, the embankment and completed the track’s superstructure.

The construction also includes a two-track road which will connect the Crimean bridge with the railway tracks of Kerch, Feodosia and Simferopol in the Crimea. In addition to the railway, the Taman train station is being constructed. Trains from Taman will run throughout Crimea, Krasnodar and other Russian regions. It will make it easier for local residents to travel across the country.

“Road approaches from Crimea and Kuban will be put into operation together with the railway section of the Crimean Bridge in 2019. Its capacity will be 47 pairs of passenger and freight trains per day in both directions,” said Leonid Ryzhenkin, deputy general director for infrastructure projects at construction firm Stroygazmontazh.

The preliminary schedule of train traffic for 2020 envisages that 29 pairs of trains per day will initially operate between the Crimean peninsula and mainland Russia. They will include 15 passenger, ten cargo and four shuttle trains.

In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially opened a 19-kilometer Crimean Bridge which became the longest in Europe. Before the bridge was built, the only connections between Crimea and the other parts of Russia were through ferry services and air traffic.

The bridge begins on the Taman Peninsula, passes over a 5km dam and Tuzla Island, crosses the Kerch Strait and reaches the Crimean coast. Currently, the bridge is open only for automobiles, but regular cargo traffic will open by the end of this year. The bridge will remain toll-free for everyone, according to the president.

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