On track: First kilometer of train link to Crimean Bridge complete

Train movement on the railway part of the newly-built Crimean Bridge is scheduled for December. The railroad across the bridge will link the transport systems of Crimea and mainland Russia.

“As of today, the first kilometer of the main line's rail track has been completed, more than 1.5km of station tracks are ready,” Crimea Inform news agency reported Friday.

According to the statement, a new Kerch-Yuzhnaya station is currently under construction with a fleet of tracks for freight, passenger and suburban trains. The existing station at Bagerovo is being reconstructed.

All construction works are on schedule, according to Arkady Rotenberg, chairman of the board of directors of the construction company Stroygazmontazh.

“Construction works of the access roads and of the railway part of the Crimean Bridge are coordinated. There is no doubt that the entire infrastructure – both the bridge and the approaches – will be operating, as planned, synchronously by December of this year,” he said.

Construction of the railway part of Crimean Bridge © Krymsky Bridge

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.

Last May, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially opened the 19-kilometer Crimean Bridge which has become 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. More than three million cars have traveled along the Crimean Bridge in both directions, within a 6-month period, since its opening.

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