What is the subway of Volgograd

On the fact of presence or absence of the underground it is often accepted to draw conclusions about the level of economic development of this or that city and its future prospects.

Metro in the provincial center

World practice shows that the transport system of any modern large city is difficult to imagine without a well-planned and logically calculated metro system. And despite the fact that there are reasonable doubts as to whether it is possible to attribute the metro to this type of urban transport, it successfully operates and carries a lot of townspeople and visitors of the city on the Volga daily . And he has very good prospects for further development.

From the history of the question

Everything began in the distant 1971. Metro Volgograd was formed and built in a completely normal way. The fact is that the city was designed and built not so much a subway as a tram line. According to the developers, in the central part of the city, it had to go underground, in a specially designed shallow tunnel. The technical intention was to build a tram line to different levels in height with the existing transport communications and ensure the smooth running. Such a scheme allowed to solve a significant part of transport problems and to optimally deliver passengers from the northern areas of the city to its center. The tram line was built for a rather long time, and the first passengers could drive through its underground section only in November 1984.

What is the subway of Volgograd today?

Currently, in the city on the Volga, only one line of such not quite ordinary transport communications function successfully. Its length exceeds 17 kilometers, it has 22 stations. Often you have to hear questions about how to properly classify the existing transport infrastructure in the city . And in general - is there a subway in Volgograd? But judge for yourself - the metro standards correspond to five stations located in the central part of the city. This "Lenin Square", "Komsomolskaya", "Trade Union", "TYUZ" and "Elshanka." Next - "Pioneer" - is already an overground station. The length of the central part is just over seven kilometers. And the ground part of the route is not so much different from the usual tram line. That is why the Volgograd metro station is often referred to as the Volgograd Express Tram. It has the features of similarity with both, and with another kind of urban rail transport, as, indeed, the features of the difference.

Technical features

But it should be noted that those who do not notice the difference between an ordinary tram line and the metro are very mistaken. Volgograd high-speed tram is an out-of-town transport system. That is, it nowhere intersects with other transport communications on the same level. And this gives grounds to believe that the metro is functioning in the city. Volgograd, whose stations correspond to the generally accepted standards of the metro only in its central part, is the owner of nothing unlike the transport infrastructure. And from the usual underground it differs mainly by its rolling stock. Technical specialists had to work hard to adapt it to unusual operating conditions. And it was quite possible - ordinary city trams, consisting of one and several cars, successfully transport passengers for many years. The simple fact that the annual passenger turnover of the Volgograd high-speed tram exceeds ten million people speaks for itself.

Further perspectives

The experience of construction and operation of the Volgograd metro was comprehensively analyzed by various specialists and recognized effective. The positive aspects of this principle of transport infrastructure are reflected primarily in the economy. Such a combined metro is less expensive. This applies equally to construction and operational costs. In addition, construction dates are also important, which are incomparably smaller than for laying tunnels even in shallow locations. That is why the Volgograd experience is adopted in other large cities of the Russian Federation, where the underground is projected and built. A scheme of the metro Volgograd in the near future will change significantly. At the present time, a decision has been made and approved to build the third line of the existing transport system in the city. Its length is seven kilometers. The new line will connect the southern part of the city with the center. Its construction is already being conducted at an intensive pace. Commissioning is tentatively scheduled for the third quarter of 2018.