Locale Crimea Length 3,275 km (2,030 mi) | Dates of operation 2014–present Headquarters Simferopol | |
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Predecessor Near-Dnipro Railway (Ukraine) Track gauge 1,520 mm (4 ft 11 ⁄32 in) | ||
The Crimea Railway (Russian: Крымская железная дорога) is located in the city of Sevastopol, Republic of Crimea. It was founded in 2014 following the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea by units of the Crimean Directorate of Ukrainian Near-Dnipro Railways.
Contents
Basic information
The Crimea Railway has three locomotive repositories: Simferopol, Dzhankoy, and Kerch, a car depot in Dzhankoy, two passenger depots with facilities for repairs, and one rail car depot in Simferopol. Additionally, there are signalling, communications and electrified tracks. The Crimea Railway doesn't possess its own railway track machine (PMS) for laying down new tracks. Until 2014, the stations of the Directorate worked mostly at unloading, thus providing the major portion of the annual shipment ports of Crimea routes in 2013, amounting to 11 million tons. The main collection exports flux from Balaklava career management. The Crimea passenger service travels to Moscow, Voronezh and Rostov on Don on an intermodal scheme "train+ferry+train".
In November 2014, there was a reopened railroad cargo ferry across the Kerch Strait and as of 2014, there are three train ferries in operation. There are two along the route of the Caucasus. One of the train ferries is in Crimea and another route is in Kavkaz Kerch.
History
The territorial predecessor of the modern Crimean Railways was the Crimean Directorate of Near-Dnipro railways in Ukraine and Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Until March 15, 2014, the Directorate obeyed Near-Dnipro railways, after which agreement was reached on its re-submission of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Crimea following the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea.
On March 26, 2014, the State Council of the Republic of Crimea under pressure from Russia, illegal established the state enterprise called "Crimea railway" on the basis of enterprises of railway transport in the territory of the Republic of Crimea and the Federal city of Sevastopol, which was ceded a large part ceased to exist Crimean Directorate. In the course of the events of Spring 2014, railway equipment was exported from Crimea to the mainland of Ukraine, including passenger locomotives CHS7, track machines and cars of the new series. The places of the former Crimean Directorate, remaining on the territory of Kherson and insignificant part of Zaporizhia regions of Ukraine were transferred to Zaporizhia Directorate. For the first time, the trains of the reassigned Crimea railway, were painted over. The emblem of Ukraine and the logo of "Ukrzaliznytsya" were replaced by the emblem of the Republic of Crimea and the abbreviation "CR", but the blue and yellow colors were preserved. Also on passenger cars the code of registry was amended from 045,046 to 085. The condition of infrastructure and rolling stock of the road at the time of its formation was poor. In mid-October 2014 specialists of Railways and Goszheldornadzor conducted a survey of Crimea and came to the conclusion that the structure of rail tracks and turnouts were in poor condition. As a result, in some areas the speed of trains was recommended to be reduced to 40, 25, and occasionally down to 10 km/h.