Russian Railways electrified railway track to Chinese border

Russian Railways electrified railway track to Chinese border

On Monday, March 22, train traffic on the electrified section Borzya – Zabaikalsk was officially opened. This is the last section of the Trans-Baikal Mainline to the border with China, which until recently worked on diesel traction. Electrification will allow to open through traffic of electric trains on the section, which will increase the average weight and speed of trains, and the capacity of the direction will increase to 110 pairs of trains per day, informs Railway Supply magazine with reference to “Gudok”.

It is noted that the schedule section speed on the Borzya – Zabaikalsk section will rise from 37.7 to 42.7 km/h due to the fact that now in Borzya there is no need to waste time changing the locomotive. In addition, operating costs will be reduced.

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The electrification of the Borzya – Zabaikalsk section is part of the project for the reconstruction of the Karymskaya – Zabaikalsk line, which connects the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Zabaikalsk – Manchuria border crossing on the border with the PRC. To convert the last section with a length of 117 km to electric traction, a contact network was built with a length of more than 340 km, more than 7 thousand contact network supports were installed, two traction and four autotransformer substations were erected, communication lines and traffic control devices were updated.

More than 500 people and over 100 units of construction equipment worked at construction sites at peak times. Russian Railways’ investments in the electrification of the Borzya – Zabaikalsk section exceeded 9.3 billion rubles (110 million euros).

Comprehensive reconstruction of the 365-kilometer section Karymskaya – Zabaikalsk began in 2005 and was carried out in three stages.

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