“The traffic will increase”: the first hundred trains passed along the Crimean bridge

About 85 thousand people transported the first hundred passenger trains, which in less than a month passed through the bridge across the Kerch Strait. As reported in the information center "Crimean Bridge", the peak passenger traffic at the moment was recorded on January 3. On this day, 2800 people drove through the railway transport passage to the Crimea and the mainland. The hundredth train was the one that operated the flight from Sevastopol to St. Petersburg - it crossed the Kerch Strait on Sunday, January 19, at 23:10 Moscow time.

In the first month of operation of the railway bridge, from two to four Tavria long-distance passenger trains pass on it daily. These trains operate on two regular routes that connect Simferopol, Sevastopol, Bakhchisaray, Dzhankoy and other Crimean cities with Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tver, Ryazan, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don and other settlements of mainland Russia.

“The traffic intensity on the bridge will increase with the phased expansion of the geography of year-round and seasonal routes by the carrier company,” the information center noted.

Recall that the first passenger train crossed the Crimean bridge on the night of December 25, 2019. The first train to cross the route was from St. Petersburg to Sevastopol, with more than 600 passengers. This train resumed railway communication between the northern capital and Sevastopol, which was first opened 145 years ago.

“The operation of the railway is in normal mode. Automation systems operate on the bridge, which communicate with the control post (electric centralization. - RT ) on the Kerch coast. On-duty duty officers in real time monitor the train’s movement schedule, adjust their speed and the inter-train interval, ”the information center said.

They specified that in parallel there is technical supervision of the condition of the supports and spans, including using instruments and sensors. All received information goes to the control center on the Taman coast.

Commenting on the first results of the work of the railway part of the Crimean bridge, State Duma deputy Ruslan Balbek called a figure of 85 thousand passengers carried as a very impressive figure.

“This suggests that Russians are very interested in the peninsula as a tourist attraction, as a place of comfortable pastime. And, of course, this was expected: Crimea is actively developing, the infrastructure is being modernized, ”the parliamentarian explained.

According to the interlocutor of RT, the railway built in the Crimea is not just a part of the global Russian logistics structure, but also “a green light for everyone who wants to visit the peninsula”.

The movement on the railway part of the bridge to the Crimea was solemnly opened on December 23, 2019. The ceremony was attended by Vladimir Putin, who noted the significance of this event.

“The event is important both for Crimea and Sevastopol - for the entire south of Russia, because, of course, infrastructure facilities like the grandiose bridge that we built will affect the entire economy,” Putin said.

In a conversation with RT, Crimean political scientist Vladislav Ganzhara noted that the opening of the railway part of the bridge provided new prospects for the development of the peninsula.

“The main thing is the even greater disclosure of the tourist potential of the peninsula. As we know, in 2019 another post-Soviet record was broken, more than 7 million people rested and visited the peninsula last year. And all this was without the main logistic pillar, which will allow us today to talk about new records already in 2020, - rail transportation, ”the expert said.

Another important aspect, according to Ganzhara, will be the impact of the launch of rail links with mainland Russia on the economy of the peninsula. He pointed out that the capacity of automobile communication is not comparable with the volumes that can be transported by freight trains (they should begin moving across the bridge on July 1, 2020).

In addition, the expert mentioned the political component, noting the amount of skepticism that was expressed regarding the construction of a bridge in Crimea.

“Not only the automobile part is operating successfully, but the successfully launched railway part also shows very good passenger flow rates. Once again, Russia gives the world a signal that we are absolutely wealthy, we are realizing such major infrastructure projects, ”the expert concluded.

It is worth adding that the automobile part of the bridge to the Crimea, opened in May 2018, also works as usual. Over 20 months of its work, 8.7 million vehicles crossed the Kerch Strait on both sides, including 114 thousand buses and almost 950 thousand trucks (the eight-million mark was crossed in early November).

The peak activity of motorists occurred in August 2019 - a million cars crossed the bridge over this month. At the same time, as noted in the information center, the work of the bridge allowed car owners and carriers to save about 30 billion rubles - they would have spent that amount on using the ferry.