Friday - June 12, 2020

One Bridge To Rule Them All

4th largest seaport in Russia brought to a halt because of rail bridge collapse
Just one rail line connects Murmansk to rest of Russia

I was going to post on this a week or so ago, but figured, eh, it’s just one little bridge. I didn’t know it was the only bridge on the only set of tracks into this Scandinavian port city. After decades of overuse - more than 1,000 boxcars a day - it gave out. Efforts to repair it failed. And now the city is on it’s knees. It wasn’t even that big a bridge, only 420 feet long, with a support pier in the middle. Glorious Soviet Project #418, lasted 90 years. Buh bye. Murmansk is on the Kola Peninsula, just east of Finland. The bridge is about 6 miles south of the city.

[ June 2 ] Russian Railways has halted passenger and cargo rail transport between the northern port of Murmansk and the rest of Russia after the collapse of the only railway bridge linking the two, the national rail company said on Tuesday.

The foundations of the bridge across the river Kola were washed away by rapidly melting snow and strong flows of water on Saturday, and the bridge gave way on Monday, the Emergencies Ministry said. No-one was hurt during the incident, officials added.

“This route is the only one, so a temporary ban has been imposed on the loading of all goods to the Murmansk transport hub after the damage to the bridge,” Russian Railways told Reuters.

The region’s governor, Andrey Chibis, said authorities aimed to link Murmansk back up to the nationwide railway network this month and that they were accelerating existing plans to build a new bridge, the TASS news agency reported.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles probes into serious crimes, said it had opened a criminal investigation into what it said was a suspected violation of transport safety. It gave no further details.

The Murmansk Commercial Seaport, which is owned by coal mining company SUEK, handled turnover of 17.6 million tonnes of coal last year. Coal is transported by rail to the port for export.

[ June 3 ] The bridge across the Kola River was built in 1930 and upgraded in 2014. This week, the aging piece of infrastructure did not withstand the quickly rising river waters and collapsed.

Engineers had discovered ruptures in one of the bridge pillars already late last week and rail transportation had been halted. But restoration works did not succeed and major parts of the bridge on Monday afternoon fell into the river.

The result is a major blow to transport connections to the far northern Russian city.

“Yes, the wagons are standing. Murmansk is closed,” a source in a local company told news agency Interfax.  The Russian Railways that operates the route has now reportedly halted all transportation to Murmansk.

The situation has created a major headache for both industry and population in the region. A major share of all goods that are transported to the Arctic city comes by rail and thousands of people use train as preferred means of transportation.

Murmansk declares State of Emergency

The state of emergency was declared on the 11th June and will last until the railway connection to the City of Murmansk is restored, regional authorities inform.

Companies in the region are now seriously feeling pain. The Murmansk Seaport, the 4th biggest in the country, normally handles about 1000 rail wagons per day, and the biggest regional companies, among them Nornickel, Eurochem and Phosagro, all depend on both shipping and rail transportation.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/12/2020 at 10:17 AM   
Filed Under: • Bridges • Russia •  
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