ULAN-UDE, October 10 (Itar-Tass) — Trans-Baikal Railway (TBR) has invested 1.9 billion roubles in the second stage of the electrification of the southern section of the Trans-Siberian Railway (TransSib) – Karymskaya-Zabaikalsk. “The Olovyannaya-Borzya stretch with the length of almost 100 kilometres is currently being electrified. Investments have already made it possible to install here all contact line masts and to mount more than 220 kilometres of wires,” TBR told Itar-Tass on Monday.
Electrification of the Manchurian branch of TransSib that plays a key role in ensuring the growth of trade turnover between Russia and China, is conducted in three phases. On May 25, 2011, the 148-kilometres Karymskaya-Olovyannaya section was electrified. By December 2012 it is planned to electrify the Olovyannaya-Borzya section, and in 2012-2015 – the Borzya-Zabaikalsk section. The total investment of Russian Railways (RZD) in the implementation of the project for complex reconstruction of the Manchurian branch of TransSib this year will exceed 6 billion roubles.
The 365-kilometre southern branch of TransSib is being comprehensively modernised since 2006 within the framework of the RZD investment project “Transportation of oil to China.” Despite the launch of the Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline system, the RZD general scheme of railway transport development forecasts the line’s 42-percent load by 2020. ESPO is a pipeline system for exporting Russian crude oil to the Asia-Pacific markets (Japan, China and Korea). The pipeline is built and operated by Russian pipeline company Transneft.
If before the beginning of the reconstruction the capacity of the southern section of TransSib was to 10 million tonnes of cargo, after the completion of the reconstruction in 2013 its capacity will be increased to more than 30 million tonnes of freight.
The Trans-Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world. There are branch lines to China through Mongolia and Manchuria.
RZD is the government owned national rail carrier of the Russian Federation, headquartered in Moscow. The Russian Railways operate over 86,000 km (53,000 mi) of common carrier routes as well as a few hundred kilometres of industrial routes, making it the second largest network in the world exceeded only by the United States. The Russian Railway is also are one of the largest companies in the world employing 950,000 people and is also a monopoly within Russia. The Russian Railways company was created in 1992, to take over existing lines within Russia from the Soviet Union.
Russian Railways accounts for 2.5 percent of Russia’s GDP. In 2007, about 1.3 billion passengers and 1.3 billion tonnes of freight went via Russian Railways. As of 2007, the company operated state-owned 19,700 goods and passenger locomotives, 24,200 passenger cars (carriages) and 526,900 freight cars (goods wagons). A further 270,000 freight cars in Russia are privately owned. Russia (in 2009) had 86,000 kilometres of common-carrier railroad line, of which about half is electrified and carries most of the traffic. Almost half of the total is double track or better.
The Trans-Baikal Railway is a subsidiary of Russian Railways headquartered in Chita and serving the Trans-Baikal Territory and Amur region. The mainline was built between 1895 and 1905 as part of the Trans-Siberian Railway. It bordered the Circum-Baikal Railway on the west and the Chinese Eastern Railway on the east. The railway bore the name of Vyacheslav Molotov between 1936 and 1943. The Amur Railway became part of the network in 1959. As of 2009, the railway employed 46 741 people; its route length totals 3336,1 km.