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Kakhovskaya line

 11A  Kakhovskaya Line
MM L11 - Kakhovskaya.png
Overview
Type Rapid transit
System Moscow Metro
Locale Moscow
Termini Kakhovskaya (west)
Kashirskaya (east)
Stations 3
Operation
Opened 11 August 1969
Owner Moskovsky Metropoliten
Operator(s) Moskovsky Metropoliten
Character Underground
Rolling stock 81-717/714, 81-720/721
Technical
Line length 3.3 km (2.1 mi)
Track gauge 1,520 mm (4 ft 11 2732 in)
Electrification Third rail
Route map
Third Interchange Contour
to Kolomenskaya
Kashirskaya  2 
Varshavskaya Kolomenskoye railway station
Zamoskvoretskoye yard
Kakhovskaya  9 
Third Interchange Contour

Kakhovskaya Line (Russian: Кахо́вская ли́ния, IPA: [kɐˈxofskəjə ˈlʲinʲɪjə]) (Line 11A, former Line 11) is a line of the Moscow Metro. Although the line was formed in 1995, all of the stations date to 1969 when they opened as part of the Zamoskvoretskaya Line. The Kakhovskaya Line is the only conventional line that lacks a full transfer to the ring line. It is also the shortest line in the system of only 3.4 kilometres (2.1 mi) in length and having only three stations.

The history of this small line begins in the Moscow urban development plan that was adopted in the early 1960s. The plan focused on extending the Zamoskvoretsky radius of the then Gorkovsko-Zamoskvoretskaya Line (GZL) to the south. Using the ideal of simplified singular architectural pillar-trispan station design (sorokonozhka) that was prominent at the time, construction began in the mid 1960s of extending the Metro past the Kolomenskoye nature reserve and Nagatino industrial zone up to the station of Kashirskaya and then splitting into two directions one into the rapidly growing districts of Saburovo and Zyuzino and the other one into the future districts of Orekhovo and Borisovo. The former branch was to open as part of the extension and would feature a new depot, whilst the second branch would remain in perspective for a decade more whilst the latter districts were being built. It was the feature of the first (Kakhovskaya) branch that made the whole line appear unlike the standard layout that Moscow Metro radii, which follow a more or less tangental path to the central ring, instead after Kashirskaya the line becomes almost parallel.

Although it was a practical reason, as the stations of the Kakhovskaya Line connect three major transport arteries, the Kashira Highway which continues on to become the M4 (E111) motorway going southwards to the Caucasus; the Varshava highway, although named after Warsaw, its direction is actually southwards as the M2 (E105) towards Ukraine and Crimea. In addition the line also crosses the Paveletsky direction railway. Thereby the unorthodox layout was justified in its transport importance. In addition most of the residents who were settled in the districts which the line expanded into were families of workers of the Likhachev Factory Plant (ZiL), the largest in Moscow, who aided the construction of the Metro so that the residents would have a direct transport to work via Avtozavodskaya station. However the most inspiring reasons of all would be the actual development plan itself rather than the practical reasons. The plan had a very ambitious project that coincided with the traditional radial layout of Moscow - to feature a second parallel ring that would allow passengers to bypass the city centre altogether, and in the future the stations of the Kakhovskaya Line would become part of it.


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