Kaliningrad Railway

The Kaliningradskaja schelesnaja doroga (Russian Калининградская железная дорога to German " Kaliningrad Railway ") is a railway operationally independent branch of the Russian State Railways ( RŽD ). It operates the rail network in the belonging to Russia Kaliningrad Oblast.

History

Before the Second World War, at that time had as northern East Prussia, the German Reich belonging territory of today's Kaliningrad oblast on a railway network with a total length of just over 1820 km. After Königsberg 1945, went to the Soviet Union and the Kaliningrad Oblast was formed, the railway infrastructure of the area was placed under the administration of the Soviet railways. Following a restructuring of the latter in 1953, the branch called Baltic railways was formed, which operate from then on the whole railway network of the Kaliningrad Oblast as well as of the Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Since a considerable part of the East Prussian railway infrastructure was a result of the war seriously damaged or destroyed, leaving the Soviet railway about half of the route network of the Kaliningrad Oblast to shut down, especially a large number of small narrow-gauge railways, which had only local significance. From the preserved standard gauge lines, in contrast to the Soviet and Russian Standard had a 1435 instead of 1524 mm, most were rebuilt in the postwar period to 1524 mm. The only exception was this the sections in the direction of Poland; where the typical European standard gauge was maintained so that in cross -border train no Umspurung had to be made.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the division of the Soviet Railways under the railway companies of the former Soviet republics of the Kaliningrad railway from the former Baltic railways was spun off in 1992. Since then, it operates exclusively the railway network of the Kaliningrad Oblast.

Operation

Since the Kaliningrad Oblast is a Russian exclave outside the mother country since the end of the Soviet Union, has the route network of the Kaliningrad branch of Russian Railways no limits to the networks of other RŽD stores. The adjacent railway companies, the Polish Polskie Koleje Państwowe and the Lithuanian Lietuvos Geležinkeliai. A special feature of the Kaliningrad railway is also the relative with a total of 963 km length in comparison to other stores small route network. In 2008, the Kaliningradskaja schelesnaja doroga 637,000 passengers transported in the distance and 5.578 million in mass transit. In addition, in the same year 18.542 million tons of freight were transported.