I will tell you about an amazing and inexplicable paradox. We are talking about the abandoned railway tracks on 5th Magistralnaya Street about 10 years ago (I wrote about this and), which make it impossible for cars to pass through it.

The rails cut 5th Trunk Street in half.

No trains can go there. Never. Let's see where these railroad tracks take us. First, they are overgrown with trees. It is clear that this road has not been in any demand from Russian Railways for many years (it’s not only for the train here - it’s difficult for a person to pass!).

Secondly, the road ends in a dead end.

It is clear that not a single train will arrive from this side. But maybe the trains can come from the other side? Let's go to opposite side. Again, everything is in perennial thickets!

But this does not stop us, and we are looking for how this railway line will end. And what do we see? For many years, not active railroad crossing.

The rails cross 4-Magistralnaya Street and break off. Since the rails were dismantled anyway, why were they left on the roadway? For any person, such a situation is absurd and ridiculous, but not for Russian Railways.

Behind the fence, the construction of the third interchange circuit of the Moscow metro is underway. No Russian Railways trains will appear here anymore.

The result was a “road paradox” (fell into our program of the same name), when an unused railway track reduces the connectivity of the road network. At our suggestion, the Moscow Government prepared a road construction project to connect two sections of 5th Magistralnaya Street.

BUT! Russian Railways for a long time did not agree to the dismantling of unused railway tracks. No one demanded from the railways that they remove the rails themselves, it was just necessary to put a signature on the agreement. After a long correspondence, finally received an agreement from Russian Railways. But what do they agree to? Read what is written (highlighted in red).

But it turns out that formally, the railways did not agree to the dismantling! In the document we are talking about the CONNECTION of highways. What does this mean? That the rails can be dismantled, or that it is necessary to equip a railway crossing (!) across the rails, on which trains will NEVER run? Understand as you wish.

This mess! Even in such a trifling matter (dismantling 10 meters of abandoned railway tracks), no one in Russian Railways wants to take responsibility. And so such crazy documents are born. I believe that many will be interested to know how difficult it is to get any approval from Russian Railways for third parties (including departments of the Moscow government).

P.S. There are many more places in Moscow where railroad tracks hinder connectivity. road network. Therefore, I believe that the post on this topic is not the last.

By the way, the unused rails on Amurskaya Street (after long approvals) are still

It's not about the District. railway, it deserves a separate topic. We are talking about an abandoned (at first glance) railway line, laid by who knows when and who through the thicket of Losiny Ostrov. It is located quite far from us. We go out to the Abramtsevo clearing, and stomp along it to the left, towards the main entrance of the Kremlin. We pass by it and go further along the fence, which turns right after 500 meters, but we are not on the way with him. We keep stomping straight ahead. The Abramtsevo glade crosses the Paper Prosek, and goes further, briefly becomes paved, then again turns into dirt, takes off on a hillock, dives down, goes up again, and a sharp descent to the railway line! And the clearing goes further and after 500 meters rests on the Belokamennaya station, but we don’t need to go there (yet).

We are studying the find. It starts half a kilometer to the south, directly from the District Railway. Traffic lights are almost always red. Laying a smooth turn to the north, the railway dives into the forest:

Five hundred meters later, it intersects with the Abramtsevo glade. Here, a crossing is organized from the sleepers laid longitudinally, so you don’t even have to get off the bike. Straight as an arrow, the railway goes further into the thicket of the forest:

The rails are brown from time to time, the sleepers are wooden, bushes close to the tracks. At first glance, it seems that no one has been here for a long time. We take a closer look: there is a strip of fresh knurling on the rails, the sleepers smell of tar - it means that something is still moving here. Next comes the gravel, and the sleepers. They indicate the year of issue - the 85th. On the other 83 and 84th. Thus, the last renovation was carried out almost 20 years ago. On both sides of the railway there are ditches for water flow. In addition, there are hundreds of old sleepers. Half are stone, dated 1967, the rest are apparently even older. It turns out that the road is at least 35 years old. But judging by the completely rotten wooden sleepers, it could be even more. But how much more? Judging by the old maps of Moscow in 1931, this railway line operated already in the early 30s of the XX century (see red arrow), but then it was removed from the maps. It turns out that our branch is neither more nor less, but 3/4 centuries!!!

After two hundred meters, we get one more proof that the road is not abandoned - trees that fell across the tracks during the 2001 hurricane,. The terrain on both sides of the road at first glance is the most unusual, a thicket of forest, on the sides of the road there are paths. But again, only at first glance. And the second one is more interesting. To the left of the road is the old one. At its base is a box for equipment, of course empty. There are no wires to the pole and, judging by the shape, it never went, except perhaps underground. (According to Mufizal) is nothing more than an old barrier traffic light before crossing on the Abramtsevo clearing, which (as we will learn later) was previously guarded by sentries. Now the forest is coming closer and closer to the tracks, and the traffic light has long been standing among the trees. And on the contrary, to the right of the road, the first 200-300 meters from the intersection with the Abramtsevo glade, here and there are scattered the remains of old brick buildings. Judging by the degree of destruction, maybe even pre-war. More or less "whole" there was only one house, something like a station building, or a guard house, or something similar, and the rest were almost completely destroyed and overgrown so that it is difficult to distinguish them from the landscape. In some places there are islands densely overgrown with tall impenetrable shrubs, as is usually the case on the site of buildings demolished or destroyed from old age.

In addition, next to the Abramtsevo clearing, powerful gas valves sticking out right from the ground come across. There is a forest around, it is not clear who needs (was) gas here? What was it all about? One of the possible answers is old suburban areas. A long time ago, even before the war, at the beginning of the 30s, Losinoostrovskaya Street was built, and the territories to the north of it were then assigned to summer cottages. This is visible on old map Moscow in 1929, given on the page dedicated to the history of Metrogorodok. Perhaps we are dealing with the remnants of the former country luxury. After the war, Losiny Island was declared a nature reserve, and the construction of dachas on its territory was prohibited.

We continue to stomp on the sleepers, there is no one around, silence, and only the birds sing on different voices. How cool... Suddenly, a powerful locomotive whistle is heard from behind! We smooth the hair that has stood on end, we take out the heart from the heels and turn around. Behind us, slowly parting the bushes, a shunting diesel locomotive rolls and hums, effectively warning of its appearance. He pulls 2 freight cars behind him. Roaring with a powerful diesel, the procession slowly floats past and leaves for the thicket:

Initially, a switchman was provided here, and they even built it, but then apparently they decided that the switchman was not needed, and the house is still standing, it is beautiful on the outside, but completely shabby, although, oddly enough, there is not much garbage there, and which surprised me a lot - on the floor, almost alone, lay a yellowed page from the magazine "Youth" of 1995. Eight years lay intact and no one even touched!

Although the railway bifurcates, both branches have the same destination, the gate of which is no more than 500 meters away. This object is still famous for its secrecy. Rumor has it that this is a warehouse of weapons or harmful substances. Others say the facility has something to do with the production of submarine rigging. But no one knows for sure, and who knows - he is silent. On the Internet, you can find information according to which the object is an ordinary military base, which means that our railway line serves to deliver goods there. It looks like the truth, but... security! Around the object there is a triple fence with barbed wire and machine gunners on the towers. It is even rumored that the Metro-2 branch is approaching him underground. A high hangar and several other lower buildings are visible on the territory. If we compare a photograph from space and an aerial photograph of our region, we can see that this military facility is carefully "smeared over". (According to Phontom) Once on TV there was a program about the only warehouse of confiscated weapons in Moscow, in the frames of which it was easy to recognize our area. One way or another, and the train drove up to the closed gate on the right branch, gave a dreary whistle, the gate opened, and the train disappeared behind them for half an hour. The locomotive drove back without wagons, stood for a while at the switch and drove off through the forest on its way. He did not use the left branch. Each of them leads to its own gate, and the left, oddly enough, was wide open (but only external):

So our journey along the "abandoned" railway line ended, which, in fact, turned out to be not abandoned at all. But the story doesn't end there. There are two stories ahead of you. The first concerns the secret object mentioned above, and the second contains interesting information about the past of our railway line.

Thus, this military facility has been hiding in our forest for over 150 years! But the arrival there was from the Yaroslavl highway. A branch from the District Railway was built already in our century, as follows from the maps - in the early 30s of the XX century. And one of the readers of the site - Sergey K. - had a chance to meet a person who was able to tell a lot of interesting things about history himself about and railway. I quote Sergey's story almost unchanged:

I received this information by chance, having once met a man who got lost there in the forest. It turned out that he also grew up in these parts, the whole Losiny Ostrov came out as a boy, emigrated to Israel in the 80s, and in the 90s, when the opportunity arose to come to Russia, every year he comes here for a month to visit relatives and does not forget the old places . Obviously, a long absence from the homeland had an effect, which is why he got lost. According to him, this railway line was built before the War (1941-1945). It led to the military unit where the arsenal was located. In the summer, as boys, they went swimming in the ponds, which were also guarded by the military. Now, according to him, these ponds have not been preserved. Apparently it was some kind of fire reservoirs. Sometimes they were caught, and then they hit hard. Perhaps we are talking about located next to the shooting range. Towers with machine gunners were already at that time. Unfortunately, it was not possible to understand the exact location of these ponds from the conversation, but they definitely have nothing to do with the reservoir near the MGSU hostel. During the war, this branch acquired strategic importance and its security has been strengthened. The locomotive pulled wagons with weapons, and along the entire branch at a certain interval there were sentries with machine guns. The crossing, where the branch is crossed by the Abramtsevo clearing, was guarded especially hard. Here, to this day, old buildings have been preserved, where, obviously, the main guard guarding the branch was located. He also spoke about today this mysterious thread. It is still functioning, but diesel locomotives with trailers almost always drive through the right gate. There really is a military-trade base. In general, it has never been a special secret - according to former route bus 75k, where it turned right from the Paper Glade towards the Kremlin, there used to be a small wooden house like a gazebo and there were signs near it: an arrow directly with the inscription "GUTMO Base" and an arrow to the right with the inscription "Possession No. ...". The first sign was intended for service buses and trucks, which constantly shuttled to and from the base, poisoning the fresh air and interfering with cyclists, forcing them to cling to the curb every now and then. The second pointer is for cars carrying building materials for the new building of the Kremlin. Obviously, the abbreviation GUTMO is the General Directorate of Trade of the Ministry of Defense. Fortunately, in the early 1990s, Paper Prosek was closed to traffic, and cars began to drive up to the base exclusively from the Yaroslavskoye highway. At the same time, it was necessary to "declassify" a part of the military unit behind the pond near the MGSU hostel - behind the preserved high, but holey fence with barbed wire, where submachine gunners used to stand on the towers, now there are private garages and free passage to the trading base. I assume that the left gate leads just to the territory of the military unit, or rather, what is left of it. And at one time she took vast territory and went directly to Yaroslavl highway. Until now, the gates and the fence with the characteristic "Stalinist" architecture have been preserved there, but a quarter of modern houses has now been built behind the gates, and you still need to walk to the buildings of the military unit. As far as I know, at present the guarded zone with towers remains only in the area of ​​the Babushkinsky cemetery, but there are no machine gunners there.

Immediately after the end of the Great Patriotic War not yet risen from ruin Soviet Union started implementing grandiose project. Large-scale construction of the Great Northern railway track, a 1,400-kilometer-long highway that was supposed to connect European part countries with the Yenisei Delta. Only six years after the start of work, tens of thousands of builders quickly left the already half-built road.

Even before the revolutions of 1917, in the wake of the explosive development of railways in Russia, engineers developed alternative routes that more or less duplicated the Great Siberian way which we now know as Trans-Siberian Railway. Almost immediately after the completion in 1916 of the construction of this railway, which connected the European part of the empire with its Pacific coast, enthusiasts presented the first projects of a similar highway in northern regions country, which, in turn, was supposed to connect Murmansk, an ice-free port in the Barents Sea, with Ob, Surgut, Yenisei, the northern shore of Lake Baikal and then go to the Tatar Strait separating the mainland and Sakhalin.

Of course, the revolutionary disorder and the ensuing Civil War did not contribute to the practical implementation of the colossal project in terms of financial and labor costs. However, in 1924 the future Transpolar Highway, which was called the Great Northern Railway in official documents, was presented on a map. perspective development railways of the USSR. However, before the war, the state preferred to concentrate on the development of another Great Northern Route - the sea route.

The beginning of the creation of the Transpolar Highway in broad sense can be considered the construction of the Pechora railway, connecting the city of Kotlas Arkhangelsk region with polar Vorkuta. Built by prisoners of the Main Directorate of Camps of the NKVD of the USSR (Gulag) in 1937-1941, the road gained strategic importance in wartime conditions, opening access to high-quality coking coal from the Pechora basin to the Soviet metallurgy.

The first train on the new line, late December 1941.

It is difficult to document the chain of events that forced the builders to go further east along the Arctic Circle, most of the documents are still classified. Nevertheless, almost all researchers are inclined to believe that the decision to deploy in 1947 the active construction of the railway in areas that were completely inconvenient for this was personally the Soviet leader, teacher and friend of all children I. V. Stalin. He is even credited with a phrase that supposedly laid the foundation for a mighty construction project: “We must take on the North, Siberia is not covered by anything from the North, and political situation very dangerous."

It is difficult to vouch for the authenticity of the quote, but the fact remains the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of April 22, 1947. According to the document, in the Gulf of Ob (Bay Kara Sea, into which the Ob flows) in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bCape Kamenny a new large seaport with a residential village was to be built, and a 500 km long railway was laid from the Chum station on the Pechora Mainline (south of Vorkuta). On the fragment of the map, the red dot No. 1 marks the starting point of the prospective highway, and the red dot No. 2 marks Cape Kamenny.

For the production of work, already on April 28, within the framework of the Main Directorate of Railway Construction Camps (GULZhDS, one of the divisions of the Gulag system), construction departments No. 501 were formed, which was in charge of the construction of the main line, and No. 502, which was engaged in work on seaport. The work was carried out at a pace characteristic of the time and even more accelerated by the close attention of the country's leadership. Already in December 1947, just eight months after the issuance of the relevant decree, the labor movement on the 118-kilometer section Chum - Sob, and the road crossed the Polar Urals along the river valley - the Sob junction was already on the territory of the Tyumen region.

A year later, by December 1948, the builders advanced up to the Labytnangi station on the left bank of the Ob, opposite Salekhard. However, at the same time, it suddenly became clear that it was simply impossible to create a new seaport on the Ob Bay, in the area of ​​that same Kamenny Cape. Hydrographic studies carried out in parallel with general construction work showed that the bay is shallow and even after deepening the bottom, it will still be unable to receive large ocean-going ships.

So, from April 1947 to December 1948, the 196-kilometer route Chum - Labytnangi was put into operation. It was completely incomprehensible what to do next, given the futility of the former northern "Ob" direction. On January 29, 1949, after a meeting between Stalin, Beria and the head of the GULZhDS "Naftalia" Frenkel, another decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was issued, which determined a new place for the construction of the same "large intermediate base of sea communications." It was decided to move it to the area of ​​the city of Igarka in the Turukhansk region of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, that is, more than a thousand kilometers to the east, on the right bank of the Yenisei, where the seaport had functioned since the late 1920s. This is how this polar city looked in the early 1950s, at that time about 20 thousand people lived here.

Instead of a relatively modest 500-kilometer road Chum - Cape Kamenny, a grandiose idea was born to build the real Great Northern Route Chum - Salekhard - Igarka with a total length of 1482 kilometers, of which 1286 had yet to be built. The road on the map of Russia is marked with a red line (click to open a larger image).

So, why, with persistence possible, probably only under Stalin, a person in the technologically not the most advanced 1940s began to build a colossal railway in the deserted subpolar tundra? About what rich deposits of mother oil and father gas contain subsoil Western Siberia, Soviet geologists still only guessed. Probably, the main motivation of the Soviet leadership and the leader of the peoples in particular was the desire to create a backup of the Northern Sea Route, not subject to seasonal freezing, with access to a new head arctic sea port, remote from the country's borders.

The events of the Great Patriotic War showed insecurity Soviet Arctic from outside attack. Surely Stalin's memory was still fresh in the operation "Wunderland" ("Wonderland"), carried out by the Kriegsmarine in the summer of 1942 in the Kara Sea in order to prevent the passage of Allied convoys from the east to Murmansk. German submarines torpedoed several Soviet ships, and the heavy cruiser Admiral Speer even bombed the port of Dixon, located at the outlet of the Yenisei Bay to the Arctic Ocean.

A new port in Igarka, which, quite possibly, was also considered as a promising base Northern Fleet, looked much more reliable in this sense. In addition, the Norilsk industrial region with its largest nickel reserves in the country and strategically important for the defense industry was located in the immediate vicinity. It could also be connected to unified system railways of the USSR.

By the way, these places were not foreign to Stalin. At one time, in 1914-1917, here, in the village of Kureika, Turukhansk Territory, 170 kilometers south of Igarka, he served a link. After the war, the surviving hut, where the future generalissimo lived by the will of the bloody tsarist regime, covered with a special pavilion, turning it into a museum, which, however, did not survive the fight against the cult of personality.

The second stage of the construction of the Transpolar Highway has begun. Construction Department No. 502, which previously dealt with the port in the area of ​​Cape Kamenny, was included in a similar subdivision No. 501 and instructed the united structure to work on the Salekhard - Nadym - Pur river section. At the same time, construction management No. 503 was formed in Igarka, which was supposed to pull the railway from the opposite, east side. Both armies of builders were supposed to meet on the Pur River. In documents and literature, the Transpolar Highway has since often been referred to as "Building-501" or "Building-503" - depending on what it is about. section goes speech.

The main problem of the Transpolar Highway was the speed with which it was built. Now it is difficult to say what caused such an assault and emergency. Other researchers prone to conspiracy theories even consider the construction of this railway as one of the stages in the preparation of the USSR and Stalin personally for the Third World War. Be that as it may, in the same January resolution of the Council of Ministers, which determined new track highway, contained another fundamental thesis: it was to be built according to "lightweight technical conditions." The working movement of trains on separate sections it was planned to open in 1952, and the entire road was supposed to be ready by 1955.

It was assumed that the new 1300-kilometer the track will pass parallel polar circle, will be single-track with sidings every 9-14 km (total 106 sidings) and stations every 40-60 km (28 stations). average speed train movement with stops at sidings was supposed to be about 40 km/h, including acceleration and deceleration. Bandwidth- 6 pairs of trains per day. At the stations of Salekhard, Nadym, Pur, Taz, Ermakovo and Igarka, the main depots were arranged, and at the stations of Yarudey, Pangody, Kataral, Turukhan - turnarounds.

The work was carried out in fact without design estimates, mainly by the Main Directorate of Railway Construction Camps. In total, there were 290 thousand prisoners in this division of the Gulag, a significant part of which was concentrated on construction sites 501 and 503, the northernmost in the country.

A winter road was laid along the entire highway by special tractor trains. The production columns of the two departments of the GULZhDS were located along it. They were built mainly in the short summer season. To begin with, a relatively low two-meter embankment was built (mainly from imported stone-sand mixture), on which sleepers and rails were then laid. All work was carried out under conditions continental climate with severe long winters (up to eight months) and short, cold and rainy summers and autumns. On average, the builders managed to build about 100 kilometers of the railway per season.

The transpolar highway was built in extreme conditions permafrost. The technologies of the 1940s and the required speed of construction did not allow the railway to be properly equipped, as, for example, the Chinese did 70 years later with the Qinghai-Tibet Mainline. After the onset of positive temperatures in Western Siberia, active thawing of the upper layer of soil and permafrost under it began, which led to regular and widespread deformations of the roadbed and its engineering structures. In fact, a significant part of the road, made in past seasons, had to be reconstructed with the advent of a new one. Repairs of the embankment, strengthening of the canvas, bridges and other infrastructure continued continuously, every year.

The climate made work in the highway construction area exceptionally difficult. In winter, the prisoners working on construction sites 501 and 503 were covered with snow and tormented by frost, in summer they were overcome by rains, impassable mud and ubiquitous clouds of insects varying degrees bloodlust.

Along the entire route, small settlements of civilian builders, administration and prisoners of the camp attached to them were arranged. There were few local building materials in the conditions of the subpolar tundra; in most cases, timber was imported from outside. While it came to the construction of more or less capital housing, the builders were forced to live in tents and dugouts. Gradually, they were replaced by barracks by the forces of their future inhabitants themselves. The remains of many camps and settlements are still regularly found along the Transpolyarnaya.

The average camp here was a perimeter fenced with barbed wire 500 × 500 meters with watchtowers, one-story residential barracks, a dining room and a punishment cell. One such formation housed from 500 to 1000 people. Outside the perimeter there were houses of guards and civilian workers, a shop, a bathhouse, warehouses, and a club.

And this is how the village of Ermakovo looked before and looks like now, one of the largest construction sites (up to 15 thousand inhabitants), located on the left bank of the Yenisei, not far from Igarka. Here, in fact, was the headquarters of construction No. 503 (the eastern half of the road), they even managed to build a power plant, a depot, a club, a clinic, six shops, a hotel, a ten-year school, an infant home, where the children of imprisoned mothers were handed over, a restaurant and some other elements of the usual big land, but such a rare infrastructure here.

In comparison with other camps of the Gulag system, the construction of the Transpolyarnaya was relatively good. Here, the extremely difficult working conditions of the prisoners were somewhat offset by a higher food standard. The construction site even had its own mobile theater. Mortality, according to the recollections of surviving eyewitnesses, was relatively low.

In addition to tens of thousands of people provided by the GULZhDS, there were many Komsomol members and other enthusiasts who arrived here, in fact, at the call of the heart and the corresponding ticket.

In addition to the climate, work on the Salekhard - Igarka line was complicated by its remoteness from mainland. quality Construction Materials“on the spot” were practically absent, they were forced to be delivered from Salekhard along the already built kilometers of the road or using the Northern Sea Route through Igarka.

The road crossed small rivers on wooden bridges. Bridges across major rivers Barabanikha and Makovskaya were built much more thoroughly: from metal on concrete supports 60 and 100 meters long, respectively. However, deformation and destruction due to thawing and subsequent freezing of soils did not escape any of the structures built according to “lightweight technical conditions”.

No bridges were built across the great Siberian rivers Ob and Yenisei. Special ferries were used in summer, ice crossings were built in winter.

Rails, of course, were also delivered from the mainland. In total, the researchers found 16 different types of them on the track, including pre-revolutionary and trophy ones.

In August 1952, as planned, the working movement was opened on the Salekhard - Nadym section, by March next year between settlements there was even a passenger train running. However, its speed (and the speed of the freight trains used to supply the construction), due to the extremely poor quality of the railway track, was low and averaged 15 km / h, not even close to reaching the standard indicators. But even in such a situation, train derailments were frequent and ubiquitous.

By the spring of 1953 in total about 700 kilometers of the Great Northern Way were built, more than half of the entire length of the highway, but on March 25, 1953, another decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was issued, according to which the construction of the Salekhard-Igarka railway was stopped. An immediate and rapid evacuation of the labor force began. According to most estimates, in a few months from the interfluve of the Ob and Yenisei was taken to big land up to 100 thousand people.

Such a voluntaristic decision at first glance was explained very simply: on March 5, 1953, Stalin died, and with him the Transpolar Highway was first seemingly mothballed, and then finally abandoned. The railway, which was built at an unprecedented pace in extreme natural conditions, turned out to be unnecessary for the country.

In total, the land and swamps of the West Siberian circumpolar tundra were literally 3.2 billion rubles were buried, so necessary for the Soviet Union rising from the ruins. This amount was 12.5% ​​of the capital investments of the USSR in railway construction for the five-year plan of 1946-1950 and about 2% of all capital investments of the USSR for the same period. How many lives were claimed by construction sites 501 and 503, it’s impossible to establish for sure.

Construction, railway equipment and other material resources that could be evacuated were removed from the highway, the rest was simply abandoned, such as, for example, this depot near the Taz River with several steam locomotives of the Ov series, the legendary Sheep, the most massive steam locomotive of the Russian Empire . The section with them was isolated from the rest of the road, so the steam locomotives remained here as a kind of monument to the “construction of the century”.

The road was doomed to a quick death. The extremely low quality of construction and the above-described climatic and natural conditions caused its rapid degradation. A canvas that collapsed and crumpled at unthinkable angles, bridges rearing up with mounds, rotten remains of former camps - such a sight is now represented by the Transpolar Highway, the failed Great northern path and the current Dead Road, the dream of many lovers of abandoned sites.

Little survived her. Back in the late 1940s, a telegraph and telephone line was laid along the entire highway, which ensured reliable communication with Igarka. For a long time, until the 1980s, the specialists of the USSR Ministry of Communications servicing it remained the only ones who used the remnants of Transpolyarnaya on a regular basis for their intended purpose, moving along it on makeshift railcars.

In 1955, another ministry - communications - took on its balance sheet the railway line Chum - Labytnangi, the first line of the highway. It has been successfully operating to this day.

After the development of the richest hydrocarbon reserves in Western Siberia began in the 1960s and 1970s, the railway returned to these regions. A branch line was built to Nadym and New Urengoy, but not from the west or east, from Salekhard or Igarka, but from the south, from Tyumen. Gazprom also built a branch line on the Yamal Peninsula, connecting local oil and gas fields with the Chum-Labytnangi line near the Obskaya station.

In addition, at present, the Russian authorities have revived the project of the highway in the latitudinal direction, from Nadym to Salekhard. Now the construction of a corresponding motor road is in full swing, which should be followed by a railway. Who knows, perhaps someday the long-standing project of the Great Northern Railway, which was dreamed of even before the revolution, will nevertheless be realized. Oil and gas are great motivators.

A lot of things happen spontaneously in my life. It was the same last Friday. As early as four days ago, I was sitting in the office, planning a quiet family weekend: a picnic on bicycles at the beaver dam, trips to visit ... But my friend Sasha called and everything changed. As a result, I spent the weekend on an abandoned railway in the Vasyugan swamps :)
Once upon a time north Novosibirsk region connected with the Trans-Siberian railway line. It started from the Kokoshino station and stretched for 180 km to the northeast to the village of Pikhtovka. In 1929, Komsomol members began to build this road, then the repressed continued. During the Great Patriotic War, wood was supplied from here to the mines of Kuzbass, to Izhevsk and Tula. In the latter, butts were made from this wood.
Vasyugan swamps are also interesting. They are located between the Ob and Irtysh rivers on the territory of the Vasyugan Plain, which is located within the Tomsk, Novosibirsk and Omsk region. The swamp area is 53 thousand km² (for comparison: the area of ​​Switzerland is 41 thousand km²), the length from west to east is 573 km, from north to south - 320 km. There are about 800 thousand small lakes here, more than three dozen rivers originate from swamps. But this, of course, to the north, we passed along the edge.
On Friday evening we left Novosibirsk towards Kolyvan. We moved down to the primer and got up for the night.

In the morning they overboarded the Unimog



(what can not be found in the fields of our homeland - they found a new giant tire)
and started in the direction of the first Penyok station on our way.

(personally, I got the impression that something else was written on the plate earlier)
Stump is still inhabited, but the station building is being destroyed.





Right in the middle of the village are traces of the railway. The rails have already been dismantled, but the sleepers remain.

We were very lucky with the weather: it was un-October warm and sunny. Such weather is boring for off-road, but we eventually found mud anyway. After half a day's journey along the "asphalt", the people's eyes lit up.

(beautiful ones!)

As a result, the Unimog stalled in one of the swamps.

It could only be started from a pusher, and for this it had to be pulled out of this swamp. By evening, all the crews made at least one attempt to pull the hippopotamus out of the swamp. But it got dark pretty quickly and it was decided to try to leave and set up camp ... right in the rut.

In the morning dancing began with a tambourine around the Unimog. They removed the native starter, put the UAZ one - it did not help. They removed the UAZ, put it back home - again it didn’t help :)

Sand-trucks were slipped in and pulled out by three cars. Pulled and he wound up :)
We arrived at the Elk station. There is almost nothing left.

We wandered through the ruins, found a diplomat wrapped in polyethylene, and in it a well-preserved pea jacket. The newspaper in the diplomat was dated 1995.

On this day, we still came across dirty areas. The main task was not to let the Unimog stall.

Since everyone was warned in advance that we would not return before Monday, the weather was just fine, and in the evening we came across a beautiful pine forest, it was decided to spend the night in it.

Two crews, however, left into the night ...
Interestingly, pines are rare there. Mostly birches grow, and quite young ones. Most likely this is due to the fact that it was pines that were cut down. Then no one planted them and birch appeared everywhere. Perhaps because of this, the swamp came closer. And I was also shocked by the sounds of the night semi-marshy forest. If on Patyn in Shoria the night breathed all sorts of different sounds: the cries of owls and some other birds, the rustling of mice and other living creatures, then there was complete silence ... Only the trees creaked and the reeds rustled in the light wind. Pretty creepy feeling. Taking into account that we came across a lot of any game - the birds were not frightened, they took off only 50 meters from the car.
Happy next day reached the village of Laptevka. The village is inhabited. There are few houses. On the way out there are several houses made of sand-lime brick, although only one of them seemed to be inhabited. The rest are just unfinished. Such buildings were popular just in the 90s, apparently then they began to build them, but with the collapse of the railway line, people simply realized that life in these remote places would not be good and left ... Or maybe the local administration was building for some new employees who never made it...

June 12th, 2013 , 11:16 pm

Spring has been very late this year. The first warmth came to us only by mid-April, and with its arrival, interesting period in my life, which I would call "stalker spring", since this spring I traveled a lot to the abandoned industrial facilities of Saxony, which could serve as the perfect scenery for the universe based on computer game"Stalker". I stumbled upon this railway line quite by accident during my very first trip, which marked the beginning of the "stalker spring".

Many discoveries in my travels happen completely by accident. On the way, you notice an interesting object, come closer to examine it and get so carried away that the object of your interest begins to gradually reveal its secrets to you. That is what happened this time. The purpose of my trip was an old mill on the outskirts of a small town outside the city limits of Dresden. But on the way, I came across an abandoned railway station and rusty, grassy rails nearby. I became curious and I went to take a closer look at this place.

01. This photo was taken from a highway that crossed a railway line in the past, but now the rails at the crossing site have been dismantled and the fact that there used to be a crossing here is only reminiscent of the continuation of the railway line from reverse side highways.

02. On the building with boarded up windows, which is in the foreground in the first photo, there was such an information leaflet. From it I learned the name of the branch and the fact that, until 1998, passenger pleasure trains occasionally ran along it. What I saw further clearly indicated that nothing larger than a trolley could pass here now.

03. The info sheet also mentioned that for more than 18 years, railway enthusiasts have been fighting to preserve the unique railway line, which is threatened with dismantling. Next to the rusty rails lie fresh piles of tiles and concrete blocks. This is a little strange, because the branch looks like it has already begun to be dismantled. Maybe they want to do something like a museum here by beautifully tiling the territory of the former station?

04. We go deeper into the territory of the station. The station building is abandoned, all the windows on the first floors are boarded up with iron shields.

05. My curiosity calls me to look where the rusty rails lead.

06. Next to the station building, the remains of a wooden carriage are the only thing left of the rolling stock in this place.

07. The further state of the path indicates that it has not been used for a very long time.

08.

09. The rails are very picturesquely overgrown with grass. As if nature is trying as soon as possible to hide the traces of human intervention in its abode and return it to its original appearance. I am sure that if you come here in a month, when the fresh grass will sprout, the traces of the rails will be very difficult to detect.

10. Judging by the age of the birch thicket that grew on the spot railway station, it has been abandoned for decades.

11. Soon the blossoming foliage will completely hide the traces of the station, but on these first warm spring days, you can easily find rails, arrows and the remains of the former infrastructure.

12. Dead end. Here ends one end of the branch. Next I go to my main goal day, having examined which, I decided to return to this railway line and find out where it leads.

13. Almost immediately after the dismantled railway crossing, the rails continue and after two hundred meters they cross the village street with such a railway bridge.

14. I climb railway embankment and I look around. From that side I came, behind the turn visible in the photo, the rails break in front of the highway. I've already been there.

15. And I haven’t been around that turn yet, that’s where my path lies.

16. From here begins my bright spring walk along the old railway track.

17. What could be nicer than taking such a walk on a warm spring day? The beautiful landscapes of the Saxon province, the calm, measured atmosphere and the silence, broken only by the singing of birds - all this envelops the air along the abandoned railway with a special charm, and the mystery shimmering on the horizon, trembling from the heat, makes the discoverer move on with childish delight. clear intent reach the end and solve all the riddles of this road.

18. Behind the next turn, a small industrial zone begins and a third rail appears on the turns, the so-called counter rail. It serves to prevent wagons from derailing on curves of small radius, which are in abundance here.

19. Birds posed for me a little and tweeted something cheerful and joyful, like this warm day, jumped into the bushes.

20. Former plant for the production of handling equipment. I do not know what is now in this building, but it does not look abandoned.

21. The road constantly winds and rises higher and higher up the mountain. The area through which it passes is by no means deserted. Houses and cottages are located around the railway track local residents. From the embankment you can clearly see the people who came out on this warm day to relax in their backyards and dachas. Someone cuts decorative bushes in the yard, someone fries a barbecue and drinks beer, and someone just lounges in an armchair, enjoys the warmth and sun. The atmosphere is very relaxed and spring-like lazy.

22.

23. The condition of the track suggests that the road can hardly be used for its intended purpose. The sleepers have turned into dust and crumble right under the soles of the boots. If anything can still pass here - then only a light railcar with a couple of pleasure trailers.

24. Meanwhile, the road rises higher and higher up the mountain and the higher it rises, the more beautiful landscapes open from the railway embankment.

25. On a neighboring mountain, some kind of palace is visible - here is a scattering of this wealth. Almost every town or village in Saxony has its own castle or palace of varying degrees of elegance and scale.

26. The heritage of the GDR - the outskirts of any East German city are traditionally built up with standard high-rise block buildings.

27. Another turn keeping its secret. What's next? Maybe the branch suddenly breaks? Can it end in a dead end or merge into the railway network? Or maybe I will meet there an abandoned station with a cemetery of railway equipment? The latter would be emotionally tantamount to finding a treasure. But the road to treasure is even sweeter than the joy of the treasure itself. That is why my every step along the slippery rails and their next turn fills my soul with joyful awe and expectation of a miracle.

28. It can be seen that the road is still being watched - thickets of bushes along the embankment are neatly trimmed. Someone will take care that this railroad does not overgrow to the state, as in photographs 9-11.

29. My path continues on. At that time, I knew absolutely nothing about this railway line. He did not know where it led, why it was built and how soon it would end. It was four o'clock in the evening and I was determined to go to the end, hoping in my heart that in the place where the branch ended, there would be some public transport who will take me back to Dresden. I did not even suspect where I was and where this path would lead me, but my curiosity was the strongest and I moved on.

30. And the road rose higher and higher up the hill, the landscapes were replaced by less populated and more deserted.

31. Suddenly, the forest parted and I went straight into the very heart of civilization.

32. View from the railway bridge from the 31st photo - Dresden is visible on the horizon.

33. Finally! The first railway infrastructure object on my way is a semaphore.

34. The semaphore is controlled by a system of cables stretched above the ground and going somewhere further.

35.

36. The semaphore control cables that go into the distance suggest positive thoughts - it means that there is something interesting ahead, at least the place where the control was carried out.

37. On the way I meet a permanently closed crossing. Once there was highway. Now behind the left barrier there is a fence and the territory of some enterprise.

38. The semaphore control cables keep the intrigue to the end without immediately revealing what is around the corner.

39. When I go around the last turn, an unexpected picture opens up in front of me. Such a surprise! An entire railway station with many samples of rolling stock of varying degrees of preservation.

40. A device for tensioning the semaphore control cables so that they do not sag.

41.

42. Well, I’ll start examining the treasure I found :)

43. At a dead end on the edge of the station there are several very old and very dilapidated cars.

44. An arrow with a plafond for a kerosene lamp as evidence of the long history of this railway line.

45. Beauty!

46.

47. I move closer to the station, where the most interesting objects of the rolling stock are concentrated.

48. Car built in 1910, but undergoing restoration.

49. Judging by the way this car is cherished, this is clearly one of the most valuable copies of the rolling stock that are present here.

68. The second is amazing vehicle popularly referred to as "rail trabantom". I was lucky to meet his brother in a completely different place and even ride on it. There will be a separate post about this car. This copy, located in the locomotive garage at this station, was bought in 2007 by one participant of the verain and provided to the verain for temporary use. (Photo from the official website of the railway)

69. My walk of several hours has come to an end. So, quite by accident and unplanned, I touched a very interesting part of the industrial history of Saxony and learned so much about a place that I would never have visited if not for my childish curiosity. How much joy this leisurely walk along the tracks brought me can be seen in this post. But all you need sometimes is just to stop and look around. There are so many interesting and amazing things around us, sometimes you just need to turn off a pre-planned route and you will discover places that you did not even suspect existed.

Fortunately, my walk ended well too - in this village I ended up bus stop and after ten minutes of waiting, the bus was already taking me to the railway station, where I transferred to the train to Dresden.

70. This picturesque and interesting railway line ends with such a dead end. Once it was twice as long and its total length was more than 13 kilometers, of which only six have survived to this day.

71. I enclose a map of the historic Windbergbahn railway. I walked the route from the Freital-Birkigt station, which is on the fourth photo, to the final station Dresden-Gittersee. As you can see on the map, the branch was originally much longer
(Map taken from here). The section of track from Dresden-Gittersee to Possendorf was demolished in 1951. Since in postwar period part of the East German railways was dismantled and sent as reparations to the Soviet Union, many minor railway lines were dismantled for material for the restoration of more important ones. The same fate befell the historical iron windbergbahn road, part of which was dismantled. Now walking and cycling routes have been laid on the site of the former tracks.

72. More recently, I again found myself in these places and took several photographs of this railway, but already in late spring, when everything is immersed in greenery on the streets. The railway at this time of the year is completely transformed and looks much more elegant than in early spring.

And in conclusion, very briefly about the history of this railway. This is the first mountain railway in Germany, the history of which dates back to 1856, when its first section was built for the export of mined in these places. hard coal. Also, since 1857, on Sundays, passenger trains for vacationers were allowed here, as the road passed in a picturesque area. By the end of the 19th century, the coal reserves in the already existing mines were running out and many mines were closed. Then it was decided to extend the railway line to the mines located further, and by 1908 the line takes on its finished form, which is shown on the map above. Due to the decrease in coal traffic, a regular passenger service is also being introduced along the Dresden-Possendorf route.

73.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the coal reserves of this region were increasingly depleted, and in 1930 the last coal mines were closed. Also, with the introduction in 1919 of regular bus service in these places, the railway is increasingly losing its passengers. All the more important for this railway line are weekend passenger trains, which are very popular with local vacationers and tourists. After the Second World War, as I mentioned above, part of the railway line was dismantled, since at that time it had no industrial value. In the 50s, the Soviet Union began mining uranium in this region for the Soviet nuclear program, in connection with which, since 1957, passenger traffic has been completely stopped and the branch has been completely transferred to the military. Later, it was classified and erased from all maps available to the public. It is possible that its existence would have been forgotten, but a group of enthusiasts created the working community "WIndbergbahn" and in 1980 achieved the inclusion of a branch in the list of historical monuments protected by law. It was the first railway line in the GDR included in this list. In 1989, uranium mining stops and in 1991 a non-profit public organization (ferain) is created with the aim of turning this railway into a museum and restoring the movement of tourist weekend passenger trains. In 1993 freight traffic on this branch due to the closure of the uranium mine and the shutdown of several industrial enterprises completely stops and until 1998 only sightseeing trains verain.

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In 1998, in connection with bad condition the roadway is completely closed for train traffic. The threat of demolition looms over the road. For its owner, German Railways, the road is no longer of any interest, and in the early 2000s, part of the track and infrastructure was dismantled. The road is no longer connected to the rail network. Social organization(Verein) has been fighting for many years to preserve the line and create on its basis a full-fledged museum line on the model of 1920 with regular sightseeing trains. There are successes along this path. The railway has not yet been dismantled and something is being done on the way to the main goal. But due to the lack of a serious financial support state and business this process is very slow.

75. When a month later I found myself in these places again, construction equipment was swarming on the section of the road near the former crossing.

76. An excavator disassembles the asphalt at the site of the former crossing, apparently one of these days there will again be a railway crossing and the two parts of the railway line will be connected again. Also, judging by the information on the official website of the verein, it is planned to reconnect this railway line with the railway network in the future, which will allow sightseeing trains to be launched from Dresden itself.

I really want to believe that railroad enthusiasts will have the necessary support and funds to realize their dreams, and on the railroad with such rich history historical trailers will run again.