Second track on railway to Murmansk gets extra funding

The October Railway, connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg with Murmansk, has approved an 80,8 billion rubles (€973 million) investment program for 2020 with special focus on the northernmost tracks of the line, trade and railway newspaper Gudok reports.

The bottleneck part of the railway has for years been the 106 kilometers mostly one-track line from Olenegorsk to Murmansk. In periods, trains with oil and coal have been packed on the side-tracks between the two cities awaiting slots to approach Murmansk and its harbor facilities.

Boosting funding to the northernmost parts of the railway will speed up construction work on the second track. This will again increase the transport potential through both the existing harbor facilities in Murmansk and the new Arctic transport hub currently under construction in Lavna on the west side of the Kola bay.

The technical council of the October Railway, which has approved the extra funding, argues that by 2025 the volume of oil and coal to be shipped out of Murmansk will reach 45 million tons annually, the Gudok newspaper reports.

The second track on the Olenegorsk-Murmansk line will be ready by the end of 2022. Today, only parts of this railway have double tracks.

Other sections of the railway will be repaired, including 53 km with new gauge.

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